Chiral ionic liquid assisted synthesis of some metal oxides

A chiral ionic liquid with a natural alcohol based chain was used as a tailoring agent for the synthesis of simple and cost effective materials such as ZnO, CuO, CuO-ZnO with peculiar morphology. The morphology and chemical composition of the microstructures were investigated by bright-field and scanning transmission microscopy (BF-TEM and STEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and UV-VIS spectroscopy. Furthermore, the photocatalytic activity of ZnO, CuO and ZnO-CuO nanostructures was quantified for methylene blue (MB) dye. CuO needles had the lowest photocatalytic activity (23.8% in 40 min). Due to their peculiar forms, ZnO (flower like shape) and ZnO/CuO (leaf like shape where ZnO nanoparticles were deposited) had the highest photocatalytic activity in 40 min (93.6% for ZnO nanoparticles and 95% for ZnO-CuO nanostructures).