Green Synthesis of C-quantum Dots Modified ZnO Nanophotocatalyst: The Effect of Different Solvents Used in Production of C-quantum Dots Modified ZnO Nanophotocatalyst on Photocatalytic Performance

Abstract

Access the quality and sufficient amount of water is started to being problem with population increasing. One of the way to behalf the solution of this problem is usage waste water treatment in industry and agriculture. Wastewater treatment methods have disadvantages of being costly and producing secondary pollutants, photocatalysis, which is one of the advanced oxidation methods that is more advantageous and effective in removing pollutants, is promising. The newest member of nanomaterial, C-quantum dots (CQDs) has been increasingly get attention on lots of field including photocatalyst. Semiconductors are commonly used in photocatalysis however, they have electron pair recombination problem that results decreasing of efficiency. Doping semiconductors with different nanomaterials is one of the easiest ways to get over the problem. Recently CQDs has been started to used as dopping agent. Solvothermal method is among the easiest and environmentally friendly methods in nanomaterial synthesis. In this study, the effect of dimethylformamide, dimethylsulfoxide, ethylene glycol and water as solvothermal solvent on the photocatalytic efficiency of C-modified ZnO nanoparticles (CQDs@ZnO NPs) was investigated for the first time in the literature. Photocatalytic performance of CQDs@ZnO NPs was investigated on the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB). Angora mohair has been used as a CQDs source for the first time in the literature. Photocatalytic degradation performances of CQDs@ZnO NPs for MB at 300 min were 82.4%, 87.6% and 99% for ethylene glycol-water mixture, DMSO and DMF, respectively. The results proved that solvent type for solvothermal synthesis procedure has important role for photocatalytic performance of CQDs@ZnO NPs.