Carbon/ZnO nanorods composites templated by TEMPO-oxidized cellulose and photocatalytic activity for dye degradation

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is among the most interesting metal oxide with remarkable performance in electronics, semiconducting materials and photocatalysis, specially as nanomaterials. In this work, carbon/ZnO nanocomposites were designed using a low temperature precipitation process and TEMPO-oxidized (2,2,6,6-Tetramethyl-1-piperidinyloxy as TEMPO) cellulose as a reactive template. The resulting nanomaterials were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, BET, EDX and UV–vis spectroscopy analysis. It was found that the formation of carbon/ZnO nanocomposites with various morphologies not only involved the structure of TEMPO-oxidized cellulose but also depended on the content of the carboxyl groups of TEMPO-oxidized cellulose. In this approach, TEMPO-oxidized cellulose is not only a template provider, but is a C-provider leading to a compound into the ZnO nanocrystals which were decreased the band gaps of samples. ZnO-T12 exhibited a significant photodegradation on methyl orange with 96.11% within 120 min and good reusability.