Examination of the structural, morphological, and self-cleaning characteristics of graphene oxide-based nanocomposite thin films

In this study, graphene oxide (GO)-based nanocomposites containing zinc oxide (ZnO) and tin oxide (SnO₂) nanoparticles were fabricated and their structure, morphology, and self-cleaning properties were thoroughly examined. To the best of our knowledge, no effort has been made to prepare GO-ZnO and GO-SnO₂ nanocomposites and investigate their self-cleaning properties. In this regard, nanocomposites were initially synthesized by means of modified Hummer’s method, followed by combining GO with ZnO and SnO₂ nanoparticles. In order to anchor prepared thin films onto glass substrates, spray pyrolysis technique was employed.

As evidenced by X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy, SnO₂ and ZnO nanostructures respectively have tetragonal rutile and wurtzite phases. Morphological investigations conducted by means of field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) respectively revealed uniform distribution of nanoparticles and considerable variations in surface roughness, which corroborate the comprehensiveness of our study. The hydrophobicity and self-cleaning properties of our fabricated nanocomposites were scrutinized using contact angle test.

The findings obtained from contact angle measurements demonstrated that the GO-SnO₂ nanocomposites outperform other composites in terms of hydrophobicity. The great characteristics of our GO-based nanocomposites showed their potential for sophisticated coating applications, mainly for cleaning the surfaces.