Microwave assisted synthesis of reduced graphene oxide incorporated MOF-derived ZnO composites for photocatalytic application

•RGO/MOF-derived ZnO composites are prepared via microwave assisted method.•As-prepared composite with 1.5 wt.% RGO shows the optimized photocatalytic activity.•The enhanced photocatalytic activity is due to the interaction between ZnO and RGO.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOF) have been arousing a great interest due to their excellent properties. In this work, reduced graphene oxide (RGO) incorporated MOF-derived ZnO composites have been prepared via the microwave assisted method and used as photocatalysts for the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB). The results indicate that as-prepared composite with 1.5 wt.% RGO shows an optimal photocatlytic performance and the photocatalytic activity is 1.78 times of that using pure ZnO. The photocatalytic performance improvement can be attributed to RGO being able to enhance light absorption, separate the photogenerated electrons and suppression of charge carriers recombination.

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