Preliminary Study of ZnO/GO Composite Preparation as Photocatalyst Material for Degradation Methylene Blue under Low UV-Light Irradiation

ZnO:Graphene Oxide composite nanopowders have been successfully prepared by sol-gel method. The study of composite preparation is discussed in this paper. Graphene oxide was added in two ways in order to study the mixed behaviour especially in photocatalytic properties. The degradation of methylene blue (MB) concentration in water was used to evaluate the photocatalytic property under low UV-light irradiation (14 μW/cm 2 ). The results showed that all varian ZnO-GO composite samples have spherical morphology and hexagonal wurtzite crystal structure. An addition of graphene oxide (GO) in ZnO precursor solution during preparation shows a better photocatalytic property that related to reducing in particle size, thereby produce a large surface area and formed a better interfacing with GO/rGO. The existence of GO around ZnO nanoparticles gives some advantageous due to presences of hydroxyl component that directly relate to the increments in photocatalytic behavior. The photodegradation rate of MB in water using ZnO-GO composite as catalyst is significantly increase compared with pure ZnO.