Effects of amylum as capping agent in ZnO nanoparticles synthesis from spent Zn-C battery.

Zinc oxide (ZnO) was synthesized by a precipitation method using zinc from waste zinc-carbon battery as a source. ZnO in microparticle dimension was formed after dissolving Zn source in concentrated nitric acid followed by neutralization of NaOH before drying the precipitate at 105oC. Similarly, ZnO nanoparticles have been prepared succeeding the procedure of ZnO microparticles however in neutralization step, it was combined NaOH and capping agent of 0.5% w/v amylum before annealing stage of the precursor at 400oC. The structure and composition of ZnO microparticles and ZnO nanoparticles were studied using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The morphology of ZnO observed by SEM exhibited ZnO microparticles in irregular shape such flakes while ZnO nanoparticles were in spherical shape with the particle size was 80-100 nm. The FT-IR spectra indicated the Zn-O bond vibration in ZnO nanoparticles indicating the blue shift features due to thermal effects as compared to Zn-O bond vibration in ZnO microparticles. Furthermore, the XRD peaks revealed ZnO nanoparticles are highly crystalline and having the hexagonal wurtzite crystal structure while ZnO microparticles are lowly crystalline and having characteristic peaks of the precursor. The effect of particle size caused significant differences on ZnO characterizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]