Synthesis of alcoholic ZnO nanocolloids in the presence of piperidine organic base: Nucleation-growth evidence of Zn5(OH)8Ac2⋅2H2O fine particles and ZnO nanocrystals

Piperidine as a new free OH− organic base has been successfully used to prepare Zn5(OH)8(Ac)2⋅2H2O particles (named Zn-HDS) or concentrated alcoholic ZnO sols. Considering the applications of Zn-HDS and ZnO compounds, as well as interests of these synthesis mechanisms for fundamental chemistry, such investigations are of importance. This strategy not only allows preparing Zn-HDS compounds at room temperature but also brings evidence of some new nucleation-growth, and permits the preparation of well crystalline ZnO nanocrystals at low temperature (maximum 60 °C). It was possible to convincingly prove that the formation of Zn-HDS phase is concomitant to the ZnO nanocrystals formation and that Zn-HDS could be considered as an intermediate initiator of ZnO nanocrystals. A parallel approach was used for the fast screening of the synthesis progress.

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