Issue 26, 2022

Effective role of Rb doping in controlling the crystallization, crystal imperfections, and microstructural and morphological features of ZnO-NPs synthesized by the sol–gel approach

Abstract

This article is dedicated to synthesizing pure ZnO and Rb-doped ZnO nanoparticles, RbxZn1−xO-NPs (x = 0.0, 0.02, 0.04, 0.06 mol), using sol–gel technology. Synthesized samples have been characterized and studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) analysis. The X-ray diffraction study confirmed that RbxZn1−xO NPs have a hexagonal wurtzite polycrystalline structure with the space group C6v4-P63mc. XRD studies showed that increasing the Rb concentration leads to a decrease in the observed intensity of diffraction lines; in addition, these lines are slightly shifted towards lower diffraction angles. The texture coefficient (TC) values, degree of crystallinity values, and crystalline and non-crystalline phase percentages of RbxZn1−xO-NPs were also investigated and discussed via analyzing the area under each diffraction peak. The microstructural parameters (crystallite size, D, and average microstrain, 〈ε〉) of Rb–ZnO-NPs were also determined using the Scherrer equation, the Williamson–Hall (W–H) method, and size–strain plots (SSPs) via applying the Lorentzian distribution (LD) and Gaussian distribution (GD) to compute the net broadening of diffraction lines. Using the GD and W–H methods, which were the best, it was found that the D-values decreased from 50.67 nm to 34.23 nm, while the 〈ε〉-values increased from 1.43 × 10−3 to 3.48 × 10−3 when the Rb content increased from zero to 0.06 mol. The EDX findings demonstrated that the compositional element percentages of the RbxZn1−xO-NP samples are in good agreement with those selected. The particle sizes of these NPs range on average from 60 nm to 700 nm and decrease upon increasing the Rb concentration. Generally, the results confirm that the RbxZn1−xO-NPs obtained using the sol–gel technique are regular and uniform in shape and have fine and smooth surfaces.

Graphical abstract: Effective role of Rb doping in controlling the crystallization, crystal imperfections, and microstructural and morphological features of ZnO-NPs synthesized by the sol–gel approach

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
06 apr 2022
Accepted
17 maj 2022
First published
18 maj 2022

CrystEngComm, 2022,24, 4661-4678

Effective role of Rb doping in controlling the crystallization, crystal imperfections, and microstructural and morphological features of ZnO-NPs synthesized by the sol–gel approach

A. Sa'aedi, A. A. Akl and A. S. Hassanien, CrystEngComm, 2022, 24, 4661 DOI: 10.1039/D2CE00483F

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements