Room-temperature solid-state reaction to nanowires of zinc sulfide

Nanowires of zinc sulfide are conveniently prepared by a novel route of solid-state reaction at room temperature. The nanoproduct obtained is characterized by Inductively Coupled Plasma Quantometer (ICP-AES), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). XRD result shows the nanoproduct obtained as the crystalline sphalerite (cubic ZnS) and TEM image demonstrates clearly the nanowires of ZnS with average diameters of ca. 45 nm and lengths of up to 10 μm or more. The IR (infrared spectrometry) measurements for investigation of the reaction process suggest that the process involves a protonation effect of carbonate anions into bicarbonate as a possible structure director leading to the formation of the nanowires.