SYNTHESIS OF ZnO NANOPARTICLES FOR WATER TREATMENT APPLICATIONS.

Industrialization on a global scale has led to water pollution with a variety of persistent organic pollutants, highly toxic and hazardous to the living organisms and also difficult to remove with the existing wastewater treatment technologies. Various methods have been tested for removing these organic contaminants, among which nanotechnology appears to be one of the most promising approaches, as nanomaterials present larger specific surface area and particular physical, chemical and biological properties (developed due to small particle size) suitable for environmental applications. In recent years, SiO₂, TiO₂ and ZnO nanoparticles have been the focus of interest in the wastewater treatment investigations. In the present paper, ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized through the hydrothermal method. The concentration of the alkaline solution was varied in order to obtain ZnO nanoparticles with a high crystallinity degree. The obtained nanoparticles were characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The results showed that the concentration of the alkaline solution influences the size and shape of the particles [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]