The mechanism for hydrothermal growth of zinc oxide

NJ Nicholas; GV Franks; WA Ducker

Journal article

The mechanism for hydrothermal growth of zinc oxide

NJ Nicholas, GV Franks, WA Ducker

Crystengcomm | Published : 2012

DOI: 10.1039/c1ce06039b

Abstract

The mechanism for hydrothermal growth of ZnO was studied in ammonium hydroxide solution at pH near 11 (0.3 M NH 4OH). The products formed at 20-90 °C and ambient pressure were characterised using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray Photon Spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS). Under these conditions, the growth of ZnO occurs via the initial precipitation of ε-Zn(OH) 2 (Wülfingite), which subsequently dehydrates, to form Würtzite ZnO. Isotope tracking experiments show that most of the oxygen atoms do not mix with water during the conversion from Wülfingite to ZnO, and thus that the reaction proceeds primarily in the solid phas..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

George Franks Author

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Grants

Awarded by ARC

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

This work was funded in part by the Particulate Fluids and Processing Centre, a Special Research Centre of the Australian Research Council (ARC) and by the ARC Discovery Scheme DP0985970. The authors thank those who helped with the data collection and analysis: Frank Cromer (XPS), Mr. Mark Styles and Dr Carolina Tallon Galdeano (XRD, Synchrotron), Tongan Jin (XRD) and Dr Jerry Hunter (SIMS) and useful discussions with Professor Fred Lange and Jacob Richardson.