Hydrothermal synthesis of photo-induced hydrophilic ZnO nanorods

Abstract Zinc oxide nanorods have been synthesized on ZnO seed layer/glass substrate by hydrothermal at a low temperature of 90 °C using zinc acetate and hexamethylenetramine. The effect of precursor concentration/growth time on structural, physical morphologie characteristics were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The contact angle measurement was used to determine the hydrophilicity of the films after exposing to UV light. The XRD results show that the structure of ZnO nanorods is wurtzite structure. The growth rate of ZnO nanorods was depended on the growth time. From the contact angle measurement, the hydrophilicity of the ZnO nanorods tended to improve as the length and diameter of ZnO nanorods increased.