Nitrogen-Implanted ZnO Nanorod Arrays for Visible Light Photocatalytic Degradation of a Pharmaceutical Drug Acetaminophen

Dharman Ranjith Kumar; Kugalur Shanmugam Ranjith; Yuvaraj Haldorai; Asokan Kandasami; Ramasamy Thangavelu Rajendra Kumar

doi:10.1021/acsomega.9b00557

Nitrogen-Implanted ZnO Nanorod Arrays for Visible Light Photocatalytic Degradation of a Pharmaceutical Drug Acetaminophen

ACS Omega. 2019 Jul 10;4(7):11973-11979. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.9b00557. eCollection 2019 Jul 31.

Authors

Dharman Ranjith Kumar¹, Kugalur Shanmugam Ranjith², Yuvaraj Haldorai¹, Asokan Kandasami³, Ramasamy Thangavelu Rajendra Kumar¹

Affiliations

¹ Advanced Materials and Devices Laboratory (AMDL), Department of Nanoscience and Technology, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore 641046, India.
² Department of Energy Materials and Engineering, Dongguk University, Seoul 100-715, South Korea.
³ Inter University Accelerator Center, Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, New Delhi 110067 India.

Abstract

The present study focuses on the effects of nitrogen (N) ion implantation in vertically aligned ZnO nanorod arrays (NRAs) and the photocatalytic degradation of acetaminophen. The X-ray diffraction of these NRAs exhibit a wurtzite structure with a predominant (002) diffraction peak that shifts slightly after N-ion implantation. The field emission scanning electron microscopic images of as-prepared NRAs show a length of ∼4 μm and diameter of ∼150 nm. UV-visible spectroscopy reveals that the band gap of pristine ZnO NRAs decreases from 3.2 to 2.18 eV after N-ion implantation. Under visible irradiation, the N-ion-implanted ZnO catalyst exhibits significant enhancement of the photocatalytic degradation of acetaminophen from 60.0 to 98.46% for 120 min.