Preparation of cadmium-doped zinc oxide nanoflowers with enhanced photocatalytic activity

Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoflowers doped with cadmium ions was prepared by a hydrothermal method and the photocatalytic activities of the as-prepared samples for the rhodamine B (RhB) photo-degradation were investigated. The results we got are the crystal quality of the samples which are much weakened on increasing doping concentration from 5 to 20 at%. The absorption edge and the UV emission peak of the Cd-doped ZnO nanoflowers shifted to longer wavelength. It was also found that the band gap decreased from 3.24 eV to 3.06 eV. Especially, the 5% Cd-doped ZnO nanoflowers reached the highest photocatalytic activity which increased the rate of photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) up to 98% after 3 h of irradiation. And the photocatalytic activities of the 5% Cd-doped ZnO nanoflowers are higher than other samples.