Nanocomposites and Nanomaterials

Preparation of ZnO nanopowders by sol-gel technique 
and studying their properties
Fesych I.V.1, Bondar O.O.1, Voitenko T.A.1, Nedilko S.A.1, Dziazko O.G.1, Zelenko M.A.1, Chukova O.V.1, Nedilko S.G.1, Liedienov N.A.2,3, Pashchenko A.V.2,3,4,5, Levchenko G.G.2,3
1 Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Lva Tolstoho Street, 12, Kyiv, 01033, Ukraine.
E-mail: alionka-15@ukr.net
2 State Key Laboratory of Superhard Materials, International Center of Future Science of Jilin University, 130012 Changchun, China.
3 Donetsk Institute for Physics and Engineering named after Galkin O.O., NASU, 03028 Kyiv, Ukraine.
4 Institute of Magnetism of NASU and MESU, 03142 Kyiv, Ukraine.
5 Donetsk National University of Economy and Trade named after Michael Tugan - Baranovsky, MESU, 50005 Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine.

Zinc oxide nanopowders are important metal oxides with unusual semiconducting properties which have wide application in various fields of science and technologies, such as micro and optoelectronics, solar cells, cosmetic, medicine, photocatalysis, food etc.
In the present work, we studied the preparation conditions and physical-chemical properties of ZnO nanopowders with natural polymer.
ZnO nanopowders were synthesized by sol-gel technique with agar as a complexing agent. Synthesized ZnO nanopowders have been characterized by XRD, FTIR, SEM and DTA/TG. X-ray diffraction pattern shows a wurtzite structure (hexagonal phase) with high crystallinity. According to SEM results, size and morphology of ZnO nanoparticles have been analyzed. Crystallite sizes and lattice strain were studied by using Williamson-Hall method. The estimated crystallite size in synthesized samples ranged from 22 to 100 nm. The luminescence properties of obtained nanoparticles were investigated.