One-pot simple and efficient synthetic pathway for the synthesis of Au/ZnO nanocomposite has been studied herein with the photocatalytic efficiency for visible light esterification of aldehydes and degradation of organic dye. As-synthesized nanostructured catalyst has been thoroughly
characterised using X-ray diffraction, nitrogen sorption analysis, SEM, TEM, elemental mapping, EDX, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and ICP-AES-analysis. It is notified that 2–7 nm Au-nanoparticles which were supported onto 20–60 nm ZnO nanoparticles, having 1 wt% gold loading,
showing the high conversion as well as high selectivity towards the target product ester. Also, the synthesized nanomaterial also proved to be an excellent photocatalyst for organic dyes degradation like rhodamine B (RhB) and methylene blue (MB). Hence it is proved that Au/ZnO nanocomposite
does not loses its catalytic effectiveness even after five consecutive cycles.
