Hydrothermal growth of wheatear-shaped ZnO microstructures and their photocatalytic activity

A facile hydrothermal process was developed to synthesize novel wheatear-shaped ZnO microstructures at a low temperature ((85^{circ }hbox {C})) without the assistance of any template agent. X-ray diffraction and field emission scanning electron microscopy were used to characterize the structure and morphology of the samples. Results showed that the length of the ‘wheatear’ was about (5.8~upmu !hbox {m}) and the section width was (1.2~upmu !hbox {m}). The particles consisted of closely packed nanorods with average diameter of 100 nm. The growth of wheatear-shaped ZnO is very rapid and can be achieved in only 5 min. (hbox {OH}^{-})-driven oriented aggregation and multistep nucleation resulted in the formation of wheatear-shaped ZnO microstructures. The product had assembled open structures and it exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity in the degradation of methyl orange under UV-light irradiation.