pH-dependent growth of zinc oxide nanorods

Here we study the effect of pH variation on the dimension and morphology of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods grown through hydrothermal process at temperatures less than 100 °C. ZnO nanorods were grown on pre-seeded glass substrates using zinc nitrate hexahydrate as the source of Zn ions and hexamethylenetetramine as the source of hydroxyl ions. The pH of the reaction bath was found to change gradually from 6.4 to 7.3 in 5 h during the growth process. The growth of the ZnO nanorods was observed to be faster, both laterally and longitudinally, when the growth solution was in basic conditions. However, flower petal like ZnO nanostructures were obtained when the growth process was initiated in basic condition (pH 8–12), indicating that initial acidic conditions were required to obtain nanorods with well-defined hexagonal facets. ZnO is known to erode in acidic condition and the final dimension of the nanorods is determined by a competition between crystal growth and etching. ZnO nanorods of different dimensions, both laterally (diameters ranging from 220 nm to 1 μm) and longitudinally (lengths ranging from 1 to 5.6 μm) were successfully synthesized using the same concentration of zinc nitrate and hexamine in the reaction bath and the same growth duration of 5 h simply through appropriate control of the pH of the reactant solution between 6 and 7.3.