Environmentally friendly synthetic route to the monodispersed ZnO nanoparticles on large-scale

Abstract

Monodispersed spherical ZnO nanoparticles with narrow size distribution have been synthesized by environmentally friendly wet-chemical route. The synthesis utilizes zinc acetate as precursor, which is hydrolyzed in the ethanol-2% H2O solution to form the ZnO nanoparticles. Sodium oleate was employed as surface capping agent to control the size at 5–200nm and to improve the dispersion properties of ZnO nanoparticles. The blue-shift of the adsorption peaks at about 360nm could be detected obviously by increasing the Na+:Zn2+ molar ratio. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) results indicated that the synthesized ZnO had a pure hexagonal wurtzite structure. The photoluminescence spectrum (PL) gave two main emission peaks centering at 410nm and 550nm. Complicated procedure or high temperature was not required in this reaction process. And the expansion experiment was conducted, which could demonstrate that yield of ZnO products could be up-scaled to the gram-scale or even more without affecting the property of nanoparticles. Moreover, the recycling solution was also available in this reaction system, which made it environmental friendly and improved the solutions׳ reusability rate. As their good long carbon-chain surface coating, the ZnO nanoparticles are well suitable for the applications in polymer nanocomposites and related fields.