ZnO Nanorods grown on cotton fabrics at low temperature

An effective low-temperature growth approach to grow hexagonally oriented ZnO nanorod arrays onto fibrous substrate is reported. The typical nanorods synthesized in this study were 10–50 nm in diameter and 300–500 nm in length. Meanwhile novel structural meso-scale dumbbells uniformly grown in aqueous solution were firstly discovered with the length of 2.1 μm, diameter of 700, 800 and 450 nm in a larger end face, in a smaller end face and in the waist, respectively. The cotton fabrics treated in this study provided an excellent UV protection factor rating of 50+ and therefore implied high photocatalytic activities.