Abstract
At elevated temperatures, the ionic liquid precursor (ILP) tetrabutylammonium hydroxide reacts with zinc acetate and the glass wall of the reaction vessel. While the reaction of OH- with the glass wall is not surprising as such and could be considered a failed experiment, the resulting materials are interesting for a variety of applications. If done on purpose and under controlled conditions, the reaction with the glass wall results in uniform, well-defined hemimorphite Zn4Si2O7(OH)2·nH2O and willemite Zn2SiO4 microcrystals and films. Their morphology can be adjusted by variation of the reaction time and reaction temperature. The hemimorphite can be transformed to Zn2SiO4 via calcination. The process is therefore a viable approach for the fabrication of porous films on glass surfaces with potential applications as catalyst support, among others.
Highlights
Because of their interesting structures, properties, and applications, biological and synthetic nanoscale materials are one of the top research areas these days [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]
We have shown that crystalline ionic liquid crystal precursors (ILCPs) analogs are precursors for Au platelets and that tetrabutylammonium hydroxide (TBAH) is an ionic liquid precursor (ILP) for various metal oxides [43,44,45,46,47]
The current study is an extension of our earlier work, where we showed that the ionic liquid precursor (ILP) TBAH can be exploited for the fabrication of ZnO with different morphologies and optical properties [44, 46]
Summary
Because of their interesting structures, properties, and applications, biological and synthetic nanoscale materials are one of the top research areas these days [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. Of particular interest to the current work is a report by Zhu et al, who have shown that alkylammonium zinc complex/tetramethylammonium hydroxide mixtures are ILPs for the ionothermal synthesis of well-defined ZnO microparticles [40]. We have extended this approach and shown that the ILP TBAH, that is, the butyl analog of the hydroxide compound used by Zhu et al, can be used for the fabrication of ZnO/carbohydrate hybrid materials [46]. The current approach could for example be useful for the in situ modification of glass tubes or surfaces with a catalytically active material, hemimorphite or willemite
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