Study of the Influence of Process Parameters on the Morphology of ZnO Nanostructures

Abstract

Zinc oxide nanostructures have real potential in different scientific fields. In the case of these nanostructures, it was found that the morphology of ZnO plays an essential role in developing further applications, but it is necessary a rigorous control of the main factors which influence the size, shape, agglomeration tendency, uniformity, and orientation of the nanostructures. In the present paper, our efforts are oriented to synthesize different types of ZnO nanostructures by chemical method, and optimization was achieved with varying parameters, such as the concentration of precursors, types of solvents, pH, time, or temperature, as well as the parameters required for thermal treatment. To obtain the characteristic structural and morphological information, ZnO nanostructures were investigated using Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). SEM analysis confirms that the morphology and size of the ZnO nanostructures depend on the process parameters. The XRD results reveal that the synthesized samples have a wurtzite crystalline structure, and FTIR spectra show the presence of Zn-O bonding. The wetting capacity of continuous ZnO surfaces with different morphologies was studied by measuring the contact angle, indicating that the wetting and percolation capacity, depend on the orientation of the synthesized nanostructures.

Keywords

• Zinc oxide
• chemical synthesis
• nanostructures
• morphology