Effects of Au nanoparticles and ZnO morphology on the photocatalytic performance of Au doped ZnO/TiO films.

Au doped ZnO nanocomposite films on TiO seeding layer (AuZ/T) were fabricated by hydrothermal processing and their photocatalytic performance was investigated. It could be found that the AuZ/T with micrometer(μm)-sized, lying ZnO bulks revealed optimal photocatalytic performance toward methyl orange under simulated sunlight, whose apparent degradation rate constant K of 1.31 was about 20% higher compared to that of ZnO/TiO and 3 times higher compared to that of ZnO.

Photocatalytic Performance of 3D Ni/Graphene/ZnO Composites Fabricated by Hydrothermal Processing.

ZnO nanorods are fabricated by the hydrothermal processing on the 3 dimensional (3D) Ni/Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) grown multilayer graphene and 3D Ni foams, respectively, and their photocatalytic performance are investigated. It is found that the composites with the graphene sandwiched between the 3D Ni and ZnO nanorods with 4 hours hydrothermal growth exhibits superior photocatalytic performance toward methyl orange (MO) under simulated sunlight, whose apparent degradation rate constant is about 1.3 times larger compared to that without graphene incorporated.

Dependence of the Nitrogen Dioxide (NO₂) Sensitivity of SnO(x) -Sn/Graphene Gas Sensors on Vacuum Annealing and Ultraviolet (UV) Ozone Exposure.

Tin oxides and tin (SnO(x) -Sn) compound films were thermally evaporated onto chemical vapor deposition (CVD)-grown graphene films to obtain improved nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) gas sensitivity. The effects of the vacuum annealing and ultraviolet (UV) ozone (O₃) exposure of the bare graphene films prior to the thermal evaporation on the SnO(x) -Sn films’ sensitivities, bonding states, and surface morphologies were investigated. With increasing annealing time, the coverage of the SnO(x) -Sn nanoparticles on the graphene increased and the p to n sensitivity transition occurred when n-type SnO(x) -Sn nanoparticles became dominant instead of the p-type graphene films for sensors without O₃ exposure.

Water-soluble noncovalently engineered graphene-neutral red nanocomposite with photocurrent generating capacity.

We report a graphene-based nanocomposite prepared by noncovalently engineering reduced graphene oxide (rGO) with neutral red (NR). The water-soluble reduced graphene nanocomposite (rGO-NR) was well characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), UV-vis spectroscopy, and 1HNMR spectroscopy; the results suggest a strong pi-pi interaction between the rGO and NR molecules. Fluorescence spectroscopy and electrochemistry studies indicate a direct electron transfer interaction among the graphene-NR hybrid, in which NR is electron donor and graphene is electron acceptor.