Aqueous pathways for formation of zinc oxide particles in the presence of carboxymethyl inulin

Abstract

In this study, zinc oxide (ZnO) crystals were obtained by a simple wet chemical method using zinc nitrate hexahydrate (Zn(NO3)(2)center dot 6H(2)O) and hexamethylenetetramine as the starting materials in the presence of the water-soluble biopolymer carboxymethyl inulin (CMI). We investigated the effect of reaction temperature and CMI concentration on the morphology, surface area, particle size, and size distribution of zinc oxide. X-ray diffraction analysis showed the XRD patterns for all the samples were similar to that of ZnO with the wurtzite structure, irrespective of the geometric shape of the particle. The ZnO rod grows preferentially along the [001] direction in the absence of the CMI. The biopolymer affects the ZnO crystals in a concentration-dependent manner by altering the growth rate of the particles along the c-axis and a-axis. The vast majority of the crystals have a central grain boundary in the presence of CMI. The precipitate consisted of micrometer-sized hexagonally shaped bipyramidal ZnO crystals and nanocrystals.