Preparation of ternary Pt–NiO–ZnO hybrids and investigation of its photocatalytic performance toward methyl orange

ZnO has received much attention as a photocatalyst due to its abundant source and nontoxic nature. However, the rapid recombination of e − /h + pairs gravely hinders the practical application of ZnO photocatalyst. Incorporation of noble metal Pt and the formation of NiO–ZnO heterostructures have been proved effective way to improve the photocatalytic performance of ZnO. However, photocatalytic behavior of ternary Pt–NiO–ZnO hybrids has not been studied yet. In this paper, we successfully prepared Pt doped ZnO as well as NiO–ZnO heterostructures. The photocatalytic performance of the as-prepared composites has been systematically investigated. Under the optimized ratio of Ni/Zn = 2:10, NiO–ZnO–Pt ternary hybrids were fabricated and NiO–ZnO with 1% of Pt incorporated revealed the highest degradation rate toward methyl orange. Nearly 95% of methyl orange can be degraded within 90 min. The photocatalytic reaction mechanism of the MO degradation by ternary Pt–NiO–ZnO hybrids has also been proposed. The Pt–NiO–ZnO composite not only can serve as a high-performance photocatalyst, but also can be applied in the fields of sensors, hydrogen generation and environmental pollution treatment, etc.