Bovine serum albumin modified ZnO to degrade organic dyes under ultraviolet light irradiation

Bovine serum albumin (BSA), a non-toxic natural polymer material, is used as a template agent to modify the as-prepared photocatalyst ZnO, changing the ZnO nanorod into a nanosheet. The synthesized samples were characterized by scanning microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy and the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller method (BET). The photocatalytic performance of the samples was evaluated via the photocatalytic degradation process of methylene blue (MB) and phenol under UV-light irradiation. Compared to pure ZnO, the ZnO/BSA composites exhibited superior photocatalytic activity, which could be attributed to the distensible surface area and the effective separation of photoinduced electron–hole pairs. Besides, the BSA used as a template could promote the photocatalysts to absorb more dye particles on its surface and improve degradation performance, which could be applied in a similar fashion between the protein and MB.