Power-dependent photocatalytic activity of ZnO

the power-dependent photocatalytic activity of ZnO was examined for the photoreduction processes of Rh101 and AN in the presence of hole scavengers, where the fluorescence spectra were measured as a function of irradiation time and excitation intensity. The concentration of the reactants decreased, while the concentration of the products increased accordingly, which indicated the single-electron reduction process by electrons supplied from the conduction band of ZnO. Despite the single-electron process, the efficiency of the photoreaction depended nonlinearly on the excitation intensity, which was explained by the saturation of defect states in ZnO. The enhanced ratio of available electrons in ZnO led to a superlinear increase in the photoreduction efficiency, while the single-electron process linearly reflected the electrons available in ZnO