Photocatalytic activities of ZnO nanoparticles synthesized by wet chemical techniques

Environmental pollution and industrialization on a global scale have drawn attention to the vital need for developing new hygienically friendly purification technologies. The most common indoor and outdoor purification techniques like ozonation, chlorination, filtration etc... has their corresponding limitations of electricity and/or other energy sources. However strong contender as environmentally harmonious decontamination process and an exclusive source of producing the most powerful oxidative agent (hydroxyl radical) is heterogeneous photocatalysis which make use of photocatalysts that operate at room temperature and in a clean manner. Applications of such safe, lower energy consumer, efficient generator of hydroxyl radical and bactericidal competent photocatalytic systems are urgently desired for the purification of naturally and/or humanly polluted water, the decomposition of offensive atmospheric odors and decomposition of NOx compounds on a huge scale. To address such enormous tasks, heterogeneous photocatalytic systems via metal oxide semiconductors like ZnO, that are capable to operate effectively and efficiently under UV light must be established. We have developed metal oxide semiconductors with tailored optical absorption characteristics, namely ZnO nanoparticles that are capable of decontaminating water from organic compounds. Results of experiments with ZnO nanoparticles for photocatalytic decomposition of organic compound have been described in this work