Ultrasound-assisted synthesis of nano-structured 3D zinc(II) metal-organic polymer: Precursor for the fabrication of ZnO nano-structure

Nanorods of a three-dimensional Zn(II) metal-organic framework, [Zn2(btec)(DMF)2]n (1) (btec = 1,2,4,5-benzenetetracarboxylate, DMF = N,N-dimethylformamide), have been synthesized by a sonochemical process and characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), powder XRD and FT-IR spectroscopy. Structural determination of compound 1 was determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction. The thermal stability of compound 1 has been studied by thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), too. The role of initial reagent concentrations and power ultrasound irradiation and also time, on size and morphology of nano-structured compound 1 have been studied. ZnO nano-structures also were simply synthesized by direct calcination of the single crystals and nano-sized compound 1 at 600 °C. The size and morphology of the ZnO nano-structures are dependent upon the particles size of compound 1. A decrease in the particles size of compound 1 leads to a decrease in the particles size of the ZnO.