Solar photocatalysts: non-metal (C, N, and S)-doped ZnO synthesized through an industrially sustainable

One of the biggest issues the world is currently experiencing is the scarcity of pure water due to the contamination of pure water by human activities. Highly efficient, semiconducting photocatalytic materials have great potential as future catalytic materials for facilitating the clean-up process of contaminated water. Among the many semiconductor photocatalysts, non-metal-doped zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles have attracted special attention in the scientific field for environmental remediation applications. The present paper reports an easy and viable synthesis of C-, N-, and S-based ZnO semiconductor photocatalysts through a simple heating method. The structural changes in the obtained samples were studied using XRD, TG/DTA, and FT-IR analyses, and morphological examinations were performed using TEM and SEM. The quantification of non-metal dopants was carried out using CNS and XPS analyses. The surface areas of the samples were analyzed using the BET method and the band energies of the samples were measured using UV-vis-diffuse reflectance Kubelka-Munk plots. Photoactivity studies were performed and revealed that the utilized

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