The morphology and photocatalytic performance of Zn(OH)F under different synthetic conditions

[Display omitted] •Zn(OH)F with different morphology (barklike, cluster and so on) were synthesized.•Barklike Zn(OH)F shows good activity in photocatalytic degradation.•The morphology is significantly changed with the synthetic conditions changing.•Photocatalytic performance is not improved with the conditions changing. Metal hydroxyfluorides have been widely used in the development of new functional materials, due to their diverse preparation methods and easy controlled morphologies. As an important zinc-based nanomaterial, zinc hydroxy fluoride (Zn(OH)F) is not only an important precursor for the synthesis of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanomaterials with special morphology, but also an effective photocatalyst in the degradation of organic pollutants. In this article, many different morphologies of Zn(OH)F were synthesized by changing the synthetic conditions (temperatures, reactants, surfactants), such as barklike, rod, cluster, ribbon, criss-cross, cross-assembled network, thorn-ball and so on. Moreover, their photocatalytic performances were investigated and barklike Zn(OH)F-T250 displayed good photocatalytic performance for liquid degradation (salicylic acid, rhodamine B, methylene blue and phenol) and gaseous benzene removal under UV-light irradiation. Therefore, this study about morphology control for metal hydroxyfluorides not only provides important theoretical value, but also performs broad application prospects.