▎ 摘　　要

The composition of exhausts from petroleum and paint industry involves xylenes and other components mixed with water. We achieved growth of ZnO particles to flowers through a solution-based method, and then graphene oxide was hybridized with ZnO flowers (GZ-hybrids) via microwave-irradiation. The solid-materials were characterized by the XPS, SEM, TEM, XRD, Raman, TG, UV-vis, and PL analysis. The crystal defects in ZnO were significantly reduced after the graphene oxide hybridization. The origin of better performance was explored by the cyclic voltammetry (CV), photo-electrochemical and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) indicating that GZ-15% composite has 4.1 times higher photo-conversion efficiency attributed to the higher photo-current and lower (6.1 Omega) charge transfer resistance (R-CT). Under UV-light illumination, after 45 min 70% of the initial o-xylene degraded when GZ-15% was used as the photo-catalyst. The comparison of o-xylene photo-degradation by the ZnO flowers and the GZ-15% showed that o-xylene has 3.8 times higher rate constant (k) of photo-catalytic-degradation under UV-light. This study provides necessary photo-catalytic oxidation (PCO) degradation details of o-xylene in water. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.