Solvothermal fabrication of ZnO nanorods using ethanolic quantum dot precursors

ZnO nanorods were obtained by solvothermal reaction using quantum dot precursors suspended in ethanol. The ZnO sus-pensions were prepared from ethanolic zinc acetate solutions in the presence of lithium hydroxide, and treated by sol-vothermal synthesis under different reaction temperatures and duration times. Parameters of processing of these nanorods were investigated, including the concentration of precursors and solvothermal temperature. The ZnO nanorod powders were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, FT-IR, thermal analysis, and isothermal N _2(g) adsorption analyses. Commer-cially available ZnO nanopowders were studied for compari-son. Resulting ZnO nanorod powders were pure ZnO and showed higher surfaces area than commercial ZnO nanopow-ders. Length and diameter of ZnO nanorods depended on the concentration of precursors and the annealing temperature employed.