Microwave-Assisted Combustion Synthesis of ZnO Nanoparticles

M Kooti,A Naghdi Sedeh

doi:10.1155/2013/562028

Abstract

A new and simple method was applied for the synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles with an average size of 20 nm. In this microwave-assisted combustion method, glycine as a fuel and zinc nitrate as precursor were used. The final product was obtained very fast with high yield and purity. The synthesized nanoscale ZnO was characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The size and morphology of the ZnO nanoparticles have been determined by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques. This is a simple and fast method for the preparation of ZnO nanoparticles with no need for expensive materials or complicated treatments.

Highlights

Zinc oxide (ZnO), which is an n-type direct band gap group II–VI semiconductor material, has received a great deal of attention for its use in various elds [1]
X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of the sample were taken with a PW1840 Philips X-ray diffractometer at room temperature using Cu Kαα radiation wavelength of λλ = 1.542 Å. e peak position and intensity were obtained between 10 and 80∘ with a velocity of 0.02∘ per second
Using amino acid glycine as fuel generates a great deal of heat during the combustion process and the produced heat is sufficient for the crystallization of nanoparticles erefore, there is no need for further heat treatment which is usually required for the synthesis of this oxide

Summary

Introduction

Zinc oxide (ZnO), which is an n-type direct band gap group II–VI semiconductor material, has received a great deal of attention for its use in various elds [1]. Due to its high optoelectronic efficiencies relative to the indirect band gap group IV crystals, its wide band gap (3.37 eV), high exciton binding energy (E60 meV), and high dielectric constant, ZnO is considered as an important material for variety of applications in the visible and near ultraviolet regions [2, 3]. Various methods have been used for the synthesis of these zinc oxide nanostructures, including hydrothermal, direct precipitation, thermal decomposition, chemical vapor deposition, sol-gel, spray pyrolysis, emulsion precipitation, and further more routes [18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26]. We have designed a new facile combustion technique for fabrication of uniform ZnO nanoparticles using microwave heating and glycine as fuel. is is a simple, inexpensive, environmentally benign, template-free, and fast method and can be considered as superior route to most of the reported ones

Experimental

Results and Discussion

Conclusion