Issue 23, 2012
From the journal:

Journal of Materials Chemistry

Vertically oriented CuO/ZnO nanorod arrays: from plasma-assisted synthesis to photocatalytic H2 production†

Quentin Simon,a   Davide Barreca,*b   Alberto Gasparotto,a   Chiara Maccato,a   Tiziano Montini,c   Valentina Gombac,c   Paolo Fornasiero,c   Oleg I. Lebedev,d   Stuart Turnere  and  Gustaaf Van Tendelooe  

* Corresponding authors

a Department of Chemistry, Padova University and INSTM, Via Marzolo 1, 35131 Padova, Italy

b CNR-ISTM and INSTM, Department of Chemistry, Padova University, Via Marzolo 1, 35131 Padova, Italy
E-mail: davide.barreca@unipd.it

c Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trieste University, INSTM and ICCOM-CNR Trieste Research Unit, 34127 Trieste, Italy

d Laboratoire CRISMAT, UMR 6508, CNRS-ENSICAEN, 14050 Caen CEDEX 4, France

e EMAT, University of Antwerp, 2020 Antwerpen, Belgium

Abstract

1D CuO/ZnO nanocomposites were grown on Si(100) substrates by means of an original two-step synthetic strategy. ZnO nanorod (NR) arrays were initially deposited by plasma enhanced-chemical vapor deposition (PE-CVD) from an Ar–O2 atmosphere. Subsequently, tailored amounts of CuO were dispersed over zinc oxide matrices by radio frequency (RF)-sputtering of Cu from Ar plasmas, followed by thermal treatment in air. A thorough characterization of the obtained systems was carried out by X-ray photoelectron and X-ray excited-Auger electron spectroscopies (XPS and XE-AES), glancing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), electron diffraction (ED) and energy filtered-TEM (EF-TEM). Pure and highly oriented CuO/ZnO NR arrays, free from ternary Zn–Cu–O phases and characterized by a copper(II) oxide content controllable as a function of the adopted RF-power, were successfully obtained. Interestingly, the structural relationships between the two oxides at the CuO/ZnO interface were found to depend on the overall CuO loading. The obtained nanocomposites displayed promising photocatalytic performances in H2 production by reforming of ethanol–water solutions under simulated solar illumination, paving the way to the sustainable conversion of solar light into chemical energy.

Graphical abstract: Vertically oriented CuO/ZnO nanorod arrays: from plasma-assisted synthesis to photocatalytic H2 production

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C2JM31589K
Article type
Paper
Submitted
14 Mar 2012
Accepted
04 Apr 2012
First published
05 Apr 2012

J. Mater. Chem., 2012,22, 11739-11747

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Vertically oriented CuO/ZnO nanorod arrays: from plasma-assisted synthesis to photocatalytic H2 production

Q. Simon, D. Barreca, A. Gasparotto, C. Maccato, T. Montini, V. Gombac, P. Fornasiero, O. I. Lebedev, S. Turner and G. Van Tendeloo, J. Mater. Chem., 2012, 22, 11739 DOI: 10.1039/C2JM31589K

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