Preparation of various morphologies of ZnO nanostructure through wet chemical methods

Hydrothermal route and solution reaction method are adopted for the synthesis of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanopowders having four different morphologies such as nanoparticle, mirorod, nanoplate and nanotubule. Zinc nitrate hexahydrate Zn(NO 3 ) 2 .6H 2 O was used as precursor for ZnO nanostructures. ZnO nanorods and nanoplates were synthesized by a hydrothermal approach using KOH as reaction chemical. ZnO nanotubes were obtained by a chemical reaction of Zn(NO 3 ) 2 and NH 4 OH. And ZnO nanoparticles were prepared by precipitation method from zinc nitrate and ammonium carbonate (NH 4 ) 2 CO 3 in aqueous solution. The structures, morphology, and element components of these ZnO products fabricated by the above-mentioned methods were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). These experimental results demonstrated that the as-prepared ZnO nanoparticles have average diameter of 30-60 nm; rod-like ZnO has average diameter of about 350 nm and the length of 3.5 m; plate-like ZnO has average thickness of about 40 nm and lateral size of 200 400 nm; ZnO nanotubules have outer diameter of about 400 nm and inner diameter of about 300 nm, the length of about 4 m. The XRD results indicated that four morphologies of ZnO are all wurtzite structure. It is found that the wet chemical technique is very promising for fabricating ZnO nanocrystallines with various morphologies.