Ana Rovisco

The degradation of organic pollutants in wastewaters assisted by oxide semiconductor nanostructures has been the focus of many research groups over the last decades, along with the synthesis of these nanomaterials by simple, eco-friendly, fast, and cost-effective processes. In this work, porous zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures were successfully synthesized via a microwave hydrothermal process. A layered zinc hydroxide carbonate (LZHC) precursor was obtained after 15 min of synthesis and submitted to different calcination temperatures to convert it into porous ZnO nanostructures. The influence of the calcination temperature (300, 500, and 700 °C) on the morphological, structural, and optical properties of the ZnO nanostructureswas investigated. All ZnO samples were tested as photocatalysts in the degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) under UV irradiation and natural sunlight. All samples showed enhanced photocatalytic activity under both light sources, with RhB being practically degraded within 60 min in both situations. The porous ZnO obtained at 700 °C showed the greatest photocatalytic activity due to its high crystallinity, with a degradation rate of 0.091 and 0.084 min−1 for UV light and sunlight, respectively. These results are a very important step towards the use of oxide semiconductors in the degradation of water pollutants mediated by natural sunlight.

Semiconductor nanowires are mostly processed by complex, expensive and high temperature methods. In this work, with the intent of developing zinc tin oxide nanowires (ZTO NWs) by low-cost and low-complexity processes, we show a detailed study on the influence of chemical parameters in the hydrothermal synthesis of ZTO nanostructures at temperatures of only 200 °C. Two different zinc precursors, the ratio between zinc and tin precursors, the concentration of the surfactant agent and of the mineralizer were studied. The type and the crystallinity of the nanostructures was found to be highly dependent on the used precursors and on the concentration of each reagent. Conditions for obtaining different ZTO nanostructures were achieved, namely Zn2SnO4 nanoparticles and ZnSnO3 nanowires with length ≈ 600 nm, with the latter being reported for the first time ever by hydrothermal methods without the use of seed layers. Optical and electrical properties were analyzed, being obtained band gaps of 3.60 and 3.46 eV, fo...