One-step hydrothermal synthesis of hollow ZnO microspheres with enhanced performance for polyacrylate

Abstract In this study, hollow ZnO microspheres were successfully synthesized by a one-step template-free hydrothermal synthetic route straightforwardly just for 30 min at 90 °C. More importantly, hexamethylenetetramine and trisodium citrate played a significant role in the fabrication of hollow ZnO microspheres, and distilled water served as the main solvent without adding any organic solvent and surfactants. The architecture and morphology of as-obtained ZnO microstrutures were estimateded by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET). With the morphological evolution apperceived in the time-dependent growth of hollow ZnO microspheres, a possible formation mechanism based on Ostward ripening inside-out was proposed. Then, polyacrylate/hollow ZnO composite latex was obtained by physical blending of hollow ZnO microspheres and polyacrylate emulsion. As expected, hollow ZnO microspheres has a significant impact on water vapor permeability, water resistance and mechanical porperties. Among them, the water vapor permeability and water resistance was relatively increased by 71.18% and 38.42%, respectively.