Morphological Properties Of Zinc Oxide Nanostructures Prepared By Electrochemical Process
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Date
2018-07
Authors
Mah, Chai Fong
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
In this work, two electrochemical methods, i.e. electrochemical deposition and anodization have been used to grow ZnO nanostructures. Cube- like nanostructures has been synthesized by electrochemical deposition, in which a mixture of equimolar zinc chloride (ZnCl2) and potassium chloride (KCl) with different concentration has been served as electrolyte. The effect of electrolyte concentration against the physical structural changes on the nanostructure was observed. The average size of the deposited nanomaterial was decreased from 207 nm to 102 nm with increase of electrolyte concentration. X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern revealed the as-deposited nanostructures were converted from amorphous to hexagonal wurtzite ZnO phase after heat treatment at 600 °C for 3 hours. Besides that, electrochemical deposition in chloride medium has caused peak shift in XRD patterns due to the incorporation of chloride ions. Anodization on the other hand, has synthesized nanowires by one-step anodizing zinc (Zn) foil in basic sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) solution. The formation of different nanostructures was observed when varying the reaction parameters such as applied voltage, electrolyte concentration and anodizing duration. An in-depth analysis of these changing phases enabled a growth stage to be proposed. The evolution of as-anodized nanostructures can be categorized into four stages, i.e. pitting, growth of nanostructures in pit, formation of nanoflowers and transformation to nanowires. The fabricated nanowires originally was amorphous in nature, whilst the fourier transform infra-red
spectroscopy (FTIR) measurement revealed the chemical bonds within the nanowires attributed to zinc hydroxy carbonate or commonly named as hydrozincite.
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Keywords
Morphological properties of zinc oxide , nanostructures prepared by electrochemical process