Ultrasonic-induced disorder engineering on ZnO, ZrO2, Fe2O3 and SnO2 nanocrystals

Abstract

ZnO, ZrO₂, Fe₂O₃ and SnO₂ are all typical metal oxide semiconductors that can be used as photocatalysts for the degradation of organic pollutants in water. In this contribution, we applied the technology of ultrasonic irradiation to modify the nanocrystals (NCs) of these metal oxide semiconductors, which facilitated the hydrolysis as well as the hydroxyl injection of these NCs, resulting in the disorder engineering around their crystal lattice. The disorder modification induced band gap narrowing, the enhancement of optical absorption and inhibited recombination of photo-generated charge carriers of each metal oxide semiconductor NC, through which was eventually achieved the better performance in photocatalysis of all these materials.