Chemical Synthesis Essay

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Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanopowders are available as dispersions and powders. These nanoparticles exhibit antibacterial, anti-corrosive, antifungal and UV filtering properties. Zinc is a Block D, Period 4 element while Oxygen is a Block P, Period 2 element. Some of the synonyms of zinc oxide nanoparticles are oxydatum, zinci oxicum, permanent white, ketozinc and oxozinc.
Chemical Properties
The chemical properties of zinc oxide nanoparticles are as per the table below.
Chemical Data
Chemical symbol ZnO
CAS No 1314-13-2
Group Zinc 12
Oxygen 16
Electronic configuration Zinc [Ar] 3d10 4s2
Oxygen [He] 2s2 2p4
Chemical Composition
Element Content (%)
Zinc 80.34
Oxygen 19.6
Physical Properties
The table given below highlights the physical properties of
Advantages of Chemical Synthesis
Chemical synthesis is one of the most important techniques which can be done by using a range of precursors and different conditions like temperature, time, concentration of reactants, and so forth. Morphological differences in size and geometries of resulting nanoparticles are due to change or variation in these parameters.
Different chemical methods used for the synthesis of ZnO NPs are listed below. Chemical Reaction of Zinc Metal with Alcohol
Mostly alcoholic media like ethanol, methanol, or propanol are used for chemical synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles. For this type of synthesis 5 mg of zinc metal powder is added to 10 mL of ethanol. Further this reaction mixture is sonicated for 20 minutes and transferred into a stainless steel autoclave and sealed under inert conditions. The reaction mixture is heated slowly (2°C to 200°C per minute) and maintained at this temperature for 24 to 48 hours. The obtained suspension will then be centrifuged to retrieve the product, washed, and then finally vacuum dried. Growth of oxide particles is slow and controllable in alcoholic media [U. Koch, A. Fojtik, et al,
Then these solutions are transferred into Teflon lined sealed stainless steel autoclaves where they are maintained at various temperatures in the range of 100–200°C for 6 to 12 hours under autogenous pressure. The resulting white solid product is washed with methanol, filtered, and air dried in a laboratory oven at 60°C. Then the characterization of synthesized samples will be done to determine their structures by X-ray diffraction technique [C.Y.Lee et al,

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