Pulsed laser ablation in liquid synthesis of ZnO/TiO₂ nanocomposite catalyst with enhanced photovoltaic and photocatalytic performance

In this work, we employed an impurity-free nanoparticle synthesis technique, known as pulsed laser ablation in liquid (PLAL), to integrate titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO₂ NPs) into zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO NRs) with varying relative proportions. The main objective of this integration was to enhance the charge carrier separation of photo-generated electron hole pairs during solar irradiation. For the synthesis process, an Nd:YAG laser at 532 nm wavelength was applied as an ablation source, along with deionized water as a solvent medium in which the precursor materials were dispersed prior to laser irradiation. The nanocomposites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–vis absorption and in-situ Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The synthesized nanocomposites were primarily utilised in two applications: firstly, as a catalyst in the degradation of methyl orange (MO) and secondly, as photo-anode in dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC). Our research has demonstrated that optimal performance was obtained for the nanocomposite containing 10% and 90% (by weight) TiO₂ NPs and ZnO respectively, which we define as the ideal nanocomposite. Relative to pure ZnO, the photo-conversion efficiency of the ideal composite was improved substantially by 63.73%, whilst the photo-degradation rate was enhanced by 3 fold. The oxidation state and the microstructural of the segregated ideal nanocomposite confirms that oxygen vacancy defects were created when perfect surface integration occurs between TiO₂ and ZnO. Nonetheless, we believe that the performance enhancement is predominantly due to the excellent charge carrier separation and fast interfacial electron flow in this nanocomposite.