Sonochemical Synthesis of Nanostructured ZnO/Ag Composites in an Ionic Liquid

In the present paper we show that nanocrystalline ZnO/Ag composites can be obtained via an ultrasonic-assisted approach in the ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium trifluoromethylsulfonate. Different techniques including, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis) were utilized to characterize the synthesized materials. The XRD results revealed the formation of ZnO wurtzite structure along with metallic Ag in the ZnO/Ag composite. The particle size was estimated from the XRD results to be about 35 nm. The UV spectrum of ZnO/Ag showed the characteristic absorption band of wurtzite crystal structure of ZnO, and the presence of Ag in the ZnO/Ag composite led to a slight red shift. The employed ionic liquid acts as a template leading to the formation of nanoparticles of ZnO and of ZnO/Ag.