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The requisite to obtain reduced graphene oxide as an individual sheet and to maintain it in the reduced form introduces a new way of manipulative nanocomposite systems (e.g., semiconductor or metal nanoparticle and graphene composite). Herein, we developed a simple suitable UV-.assisted photocatalytic reduction method to prepare the most viable nanocomposite ZnO/RGO. Graphene oxide undergoes reduction reaction in ethanol- water system as it accepts electrons from UV irradiated semiconductor (ZnO), and subsequently characterized using different standard techniques. The presence of graphene in the composites were confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, FTIR, SEM, TEM, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. The highly efficient ZnO/RGO nanocomposite exhibited enhanced photocatalytic degradation performance for the degradation of methylene blue, with a maximum removal rate of (∼80%) as compared with pure ZnO nanoparticles (∼68%). This effective increase in degradation were caused by the prevention of electron–hole pair recombination in ZnO with the introduction of RGO. These findings suggest that the synthesized ZnO/RGO nanocomposite via photocatalytic approach not only offers UV-assisted reduction technique, but also open up a new way to obtain photoactive graphene-semiconductors, which could be effectively used in various application.

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The determined need for a sustainable energy economy has evoked the increasing interest of researchers concerning the discovery of smart material designs of layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanocomposites for energy-based applications.

The advancement of novel synthetic approaches for micro/nanostructural manipulation of transition metal phosphides (TMPs) materials with precisely controlled engineering is crucial to realize their practical use in batteries. Here, we...