Synthesis of ZnO material: A new approach by hydrothermal method

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) material possesses various morphologies which have given ZnO many fascinating applications in practice. Thus, the controlled synthesis of morphology and size of ZnO microstructures has attracted great interest. Many synthetic methods exhibited their effectiveness in producing pure ZnO, and the hydrothermal synthesis expresses its own considerable advantages for controlling the morphology of ZnO with low particle-size distribution. Moreover, the hydrothermal synthesis can be performed under mild condition rather than the conventional harsh ceramic method. In this work, we performed hydrothermal synthesis by altering different initial seeds by pre-treating of Zinc acetate solution prior to hydrothermal action. Characterization methods such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman and Infrared (IR) spectroscopy were used to determine the morphology and surface functional groups of ZnO final products. Firstly, we processed the pretreatment of Zinc acetate solution by annealing it at 90 ◦C for 1h before putting the solution into autoclave together with NH3 solution for hydrothermal synthesis (this process is called as two-step hydrothermal synthesis). Secondly, the reaction temperatures (120 ◦C, 150 ◦C, 180 ◦C) were investigated to provide the role of temperature synthesis in controlling size and shape of ZnO, and at 150 ◦C, ZnO particles were formed with reasonable uniform morphology. Finally, we examined the effects of initial seeds by pre-treating Zinc acetate solution with H2O2, or, the initial seeds change from only Zn(OH)2 (without H2O2) to mutual existence of Zn(OH)2 and ZnO2 (with H2O2). In this case, ZnO Wurtzite phase was obtained with 100% purity at 180 ◦C, or at higher temperature than other samples whose ZnO Wurtzite phase was formed at only 150 ◦C. The results show that the nature of initial seeds greatly impact not only on the shape and size, but also on the surface functional groups of ZnO final product.