title: NH4+ directed assembly of zinc oxide micro-tubes from nanoflakes.
abstract: A simple precipitation process followed with the heat treatment was developed to synthesize ZnO micro-tubes by self-assembly of nanoflakes composed of nanoparticles. The resulting ZnO micro-tubes demonstrated excellent photocatalytic performance in degrading methylene blue (MB) under UV illumination. It was found that NH4+ ion played a critical role in directing the assembly of the nanoflakes to form the micro-tube structure. A critical reaction ratio existed at or above which the ZnO micro-tubes could be obtained. For the mixtures of solutions of (NH4)2CO3 and zinc salt, the ratio () was 2:1.
authors.affiliation: Materials Center for Water Purification, Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, People's Republic of China. qili@imr.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Weiyi
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Shian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Jian Ku
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Shang