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Microwave-assisted synthesis of layered basic zinc acetate nanosheets and their thermal decomposition into nanocrystalline ZnO
Afshin Tarat,
Chris J Nettle,
Daniel T J Bryant,
Daniel R Jones,
Mark W Penny,
Richard A Brown,
Ravish Majitha,
Kenith E Meissner,
Thierry Maffeis 
Nanoscale Research Letters, Volume: 9, Issue: 1, Start page: 11
Swansea University Author:
Thierry Maffeis
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DOI (Published version): 10.1186/1556-276X-9-11
Abstract
We have developed a low-cost technique using a conventional microwave oven to grow layered basic zinc acetate (LBZA) nanosheets (NSs) from a zinc acetate, zinc nitrate and HMTA solution in only 2 min. The as-grown crystals and their pyrolytic decomposition into ZnO nanocrystalline NSs are characteri...
| Published in: | Nanoscale Research Letters |
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| ISSN: | 1556-276X |
| Published: |
2014
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| Online Access: |
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa21131 |
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| Abstract: |
We have developed a low-cost technique using a conventional microwave oven to grow layered basic zinc acetate (LBZA) nanosheets (NSs) from a zinc acetate, zinc nitrate and HMTA solution in only 2 min. The as-grown crystals and their pyrolytic decomposition into ZnO nanocrystalline NSs are characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and photoluminescence (PL). SEM and AFM measurements show that the LBZA NSs have typical lateral dimensions of 1 to 5 μm and thickness of 20 to 100 nm. Annealing in air from 200°C to 1,000°C results in the formation of ZnO nanocrystalline NSs, with a nanocrystallite size ranging from 16 nm at 200°C to 104 nm at 1,000°C, as determined by SEM. SEM shows evidence of sintering at 600°C. PL shows that the shape of the visible band is greatly affected by the annealing temperature and that the exciton band to defect band intensity ratio is maximum at 400°C and decreases by a factor of 15 after annealing at 600°C. The shape and thickness of the ZnO nanocrystalline NSs are the same as LBZA NSs. This structure provides a high surface-to-volume ratio of interconnected nanoparticles that is favorable for applications requiring high specific area and low resistivity such as gas sensing and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). We show that resistive gas sensors fabricated with the ZnO NSs showed a response of 1.12 and 1.65 to 12.5 ppm and 200 ppm of CO at 350°C in dry air, respectively, and that DSCs also fabricated from the material had an overall efficiency of 1.3%. |
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| Item Description: |
© 2014 Tarat et al.; licensee Springer. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative CommonsAttribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproductionin any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: |
Gas sensor, LBZA, Nanocrystalline, Solar cell, ZnO |
| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |
| Issue: |
1 |
| Start Page: |
11 |