Synthesis and photocatalysis of hierarchical heteroassemblies of ZnO branched nanorod arrays on Ag core nanowires

In this paper, hierarchical heteroassemblies made of interwoven Ag core nanowires (NWs) covered by ZnO branched nanorods (ZnO BNRs) are successfully prepared on a large scale via a solution bottom-up strategy coupling with a templating method. Briefly, heteroepitaxial growth of ZnO nanorods (ZnO NRs) on ZnO seed-coated Ag NWs is first conducted to form fluffy worm-like heteroassemblies. Then, by templating these, ZnO BNRs with exposed high-energy (001) planes on Ag NWs are fabricated with preserved morphology through the second nucleation and growth processes. When evaluated with UV-induced photo-degradation of rhodamine B (RhB), the heteroassemblies of Ag NWs-ZnO BNRs exhibit high photocatalytic properties, due to the decisive roles of the synergistic effect of the unique metal-semiconductor heterojunction and the hierarchical fluffy worm-like morphologies as well as the (001) plane-dominant surface of ZnO BNRs which are attractive for highly efficient photocatalysis.