Room-temperature synthesis of pompon-like ZnO hierarchical structures and their enhanced photocatalytic properties

In this paper, an efficient and simple route combined with a subsequent calcining process to synthesize pompon-like ZnO microstructures at room temperature (25 °C) has been developed. The samples were intensively investigated by SEM, TEM, HRTEM, and XRD. The results indicate that the well-crystallized pompon-like ZnO is assembled by interlaced nanoplates with uniform thickness of about 50 nm. The photocatalytic trials confirm that the pompon-like ZnO exhibits excellent degradation efficiency under UV light. Moreover, the as-prepared ZnO samples show superior durability and stability after six photodegradation cycling runs. Finally, a mechanism was proposed to elucidate the photodegradation reaction of the pompon-like ZnO.