Synthesis of iron-doped zinc oxide (Fe-ZnO) nanoparticles by using several stabilizers

Abstract

Studies on the effect of the stabilizer of chitosan, citric acid and urea for preparation Fe-doped ZnO have been conducted. Both ZnO and Fe were prepared from each salt precursor solution. The Zn2+ was added fist and subsequently Fe2+ by dropwise method into each stabilizer solution before converted into the hydroxide compounds before annealing. All metal ion solutions precipitated out after 7 minutes of NaOH addition except in urea stabilizer, where the solution remained in the colloidal form for more than 30 minutes. The hydroxyl ions are required for ZnO formation, but it weakens chitosan and citric acid stabilizing capacity, which instigated ZnO particles to be highly agglomerated. Each stabilizer generated a smaller ZnO crystallite size compared to the control sample. Fe-ZnO crystallite size prepared using chitosan, citric acid and urea as the stabilizer was 14.75, 23.29 and 22.51 nm, respectively. The crystallite size of Fe-ZnO that was prepared without stabilizer (control) was 32.89 nm.