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 mum, 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. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.