Study of the Photocatalytic Activity of Na and Al-doped ZnO Powders

Abstract

Na and Al-doped ZnO nano-powders were prepared by the sol-gel method. The XRD results indicated that all samples revealed a wurtzite-type hexagonal crystalline structure and the grain size of Al-doped ZnO decreases with increasing Al doping. The grain size of Na-doped ZnO is about 50 nm. Photocatalytic degradation of the methyl orange solution under the light of wavelength of 254 nm was performed to investigate the photocatalytic activity of Na, Al-doped ZnO powders. The results showed that Al dopant can greatly improve the photocatalytic activity of ZnO powder. The enhancement of photocatalytic activity of doped ZnO powers is mainly due to their smaller particle size and capability for reducing the electron hole pair recombination.

Keywords:

• Sol–gel method
• ZnO nano-powders
• methyl orange
• photocatalytic activity

Acknowledgments

The work was supported by National Natural Science foundation of China under Grant No 11074203; Key Disciplinary of Materials Science under Grant No XZD0814-09-1; the Chun Hui project of the Education Ministry of China under Grant No Z2011077; the graduate innovation foundation of Xihua University under Grant No YCJJ201257 and YCJJ201258.