Enhanced Thermocatalytic Activity of Porous Yellow ZnO Nanoflakes: Defect- and Morphology-Induced Perspectives

Herein, we report a simple and effective strategy for the synthesis of yellow ZnO (Y-ZnO) nanostructures with abundant oxygen vacancies on a large scale, through the sulfidation of ZnO followed by calcination. The developed strategy allows retention of the overall morphology of Y-ZnO compared with pristine ZnO and the extent of oxygen vacancies can be tuned. The influence of oxygen deficiencies, the extent of defect sites, and the morphology of ZnO on its solution-phase thermocatalytic activity has been evaluated in the synthesis of 5-substituted-1H-tetrazoles with different nitriles and sodium azide. A reasonable enhancement in the reaction rate was achieved by using Y-ZnO nanoflakes (Y-ZnO NFs) as a catalyst in place of pristine ZnO NFs. The reaction was complete within 6 h at 110 °C with Y-ZnO NFs, whereas it took 14 h at 120 °C with pristine ZnO NFs. The catalyst is easy to recycle without a significant loss in catalytic activity.