Facile synthesis of Cu-doped ZnO nanoparticle in triethyleneglycol: photocatalytic activities and aquatic ecotoxicity.

A new synthetisis method of Cu-doped ZnO nanoparticles is presented in this work, this novel approach allow one to produce Zinc oxide nanocristal owing to a modified Polyol process that makes use of triethyleneglycol (TREG) as a solvent. The structure and morphology of the nanoparticles were characterized by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), N adsorption study, UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The lightly doped ZnCuO photocatalysts consisted in a novel nanorods structure of ZnCuO nanoparticles.