ZnO, a well known photocatalyst due to its wide band gap, is used for environmental remediation applications. Under present investigation, two urea based imidazole functionalised compounds R and S were synthesised and then used as structure directing agent to further synthesise surface functionalised ZnO nanorods at room temperature (30-40 degrees C) by simple chemical precipitation route. R: Zn(NO3)(2)center dot 6H(2)O: NaOH used in two ratios i.e. 1:2:4 and 1:1:1 to synthesise ft functionalised ZnO nanorods i.e. R1 and R2 respectively while S: Zn(NO3)(2)center dot 6H(2)O: NaOH used in 1:2:4 ratio to synthesise S functionalised ZnO nanoparticles i.e. S1. R functionalized ZnO nanorods (R1) have length, breadth, zeta potential and surface area as 330 nm, 19 nm, 34.6 mV and 134 m(2)/g respectively. Rhodamine B dye was degraded as 84% and 63% by R-ZnO (R1) and S-ZnO (S1) respectively under UV lamp for 3 h which is more than twice for R1 in comparison to R.