Investigation of defects in N-doped ZnO powders prepared by a facile solvothermal method and their UV photocatalytic properties

•A facile synthetic procedure for N-doped ZnO powders using solvothermal process.•The N defects are (N)O as acceptors, and the donors defects were confirmed to Hi.•UV photocatalytic activity decreases with the incorporated N concentration.•Abundant acceptor defects hindered the photoinduced holes generating.

A facile synthetic procedure for N-doped ZnO powders was proposed. In this work, N-doped ZnO crystals were synthesized in diethylene glycol (DEG) with ammonia solution via solvothermal process. Incorporated N concentration increases with the amount of ammonia solution. In order to confirm the defects of as-gained ZnO powders, the samples were characterized by XRD, PL, and EPR. In our results, the N-related defects were considered to be (N)O centers as acceptors, other than (N2)O. And, the donors defects were confirmed to Hi. UV photocatalytic activity of the N-doped ZnO crystals was assessed from the photodegradation kinetics of methyl orange (MO). The result shows that the UV photocatalytic activity of N-doped ZnO decreases with the incorporated N concentration. This was caused by abundant acceptors hindered the photoinduced holes generating.

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