For the two ZnO samples (commercial, heat treated composite), almost 100% of the DPPH dye degraded in less than 10 min while in the presence of the nanorod/LBZA composite only ~10% degraded over the same time interval suggesting significantly quenched photoactivity. The simple prorata differences in the amount of ZnO in the commercial and composite sample available for photoactvity do not explain the observed lower photoactivity suggesting that LBZA plays an active role in its photoactivity reduction. To confirm that there were no major changes in UV absorption behaviour; absorption profiles of powders dispersed in MOTG are collected and presented in Fig. 4(b). Here the UV absorption of the LBZA/nanorod composite and commercial ZnO is very similar to each other while the heat treated LBZA/nanorod sample shows increased absorption efficiency presumably due to the presence of ZnO particles of ~10 nm. Fig. 4(a) also shows that 100% of dye degradation occurred in ~5 min in the presence of heat treated ZnO composite, which is faster than that of commercial ZnO (~10 min). It indicated that heat treated ZnO had higher photoactivity than commercial ZnO particle. This is almost certain due to the presence of much smaller ZnO NPs that are well distributed as what appears to be single NP throughout the sample increasing the specific surface area and the number of active surface sites where the photogenerated charge carriers are able to react with absorbed molecules to form hydroxyl and superoxide radicals.