Effect of Calcination Temperature on the Crystallite Size and Morphology of Zinc Oxide/Polivynl Nano-Composite Synthesized Via Sol-gel method.

Abstract

ZnO/ polyvinyl pyrrolidone nanocomposites were synthesized from zinc nitrite (as a precursor) and polyvinyl pyrrolidone as a stabilizing by sol-gel method at pH of 11 and ambient synthetic temperature. The synthesized ZnO/polyvinyl pyrrolidone (ZnO/PVP) nanocomposites were subjected to different calcination temperatures (ambient 300°C, 500 °C, and 700 °C). The synthesized ZnO/ polyvinyl pyrrolidone nanocomposites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), High resolution Scanning electron microscopy (HRSEM), Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). The XRD results revealed the crystallite size calculated using the Scherrer equation was 160.96 nm, 10.74 nm, 13.33 nm, and 16.52 for the ambient, 300°C, 500 °C, and 700 °C respectively. The result indicates the synthesis of the hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO. The HRSEM shows spherical structures of the nanocomposites. It is observed that at a low temperature, the stoichiometric ratio between Zn and O atoms has a significant deviation from the perfect ratio of 1:1and becomes optimized as the temperature increases as sown by the EDS result.