To begin, measure 200 milliliters of absolute ethyl alcohol and pour it into a glass round-bottom flask. Place the flask on a heating mantle and maintain stirring at 25 to 40 degrees Celsius. Weigh 500 milligrams of CTAB in a 50 milliliter vial and add it to the ethyl alcohol in the flask.
Keep stirring the solution until CTAB is completely dissolved, then add 1.4 grams of zinc acetate to the solution. Set the heating mantle temperature to 70 degrees Celsius to increase the temperature of the solution. Add 25 milliliters of 0.5 molar sodium hydroxide solution to the mixture and let it react for one hour until the clear solution becomes white in color.
Aliquot the solution to 50-milliliter conical tubes, then centrifuge it at 15, 000 G for 15 minutes at room temperature. Discard the supernatant. Next, add 10 milliliters of distilled water to one of the conical tubes, and resuspend the nanoparticles by sonicating the solution.
Transfer the suspended solution to a different conical tube, containing the zinc oxide pellet. Centrifuge the nanoparticles at 15, 000 G for 15 minutes at room temperature, then remove the supernatant. Resuspend the nanoparticles in distilled water.
Check the pH of the supernatant solution using pH test paper. Fugation until the pH of the solution becomes neutral. Then discard the supernatant and vacuum dry the sample pellet at 60 degrees Celsius for 24 hours to obtain the zinc oxide nanoparticle powder.
The successful synthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles was confirmed using transmission electron microscopy. The obtained nanoparticles were round. Dynamic light scattering showed that the synthesized nanoparticles had an average size of 130.4 nanometers and a zeta potential of 28.92 millivolts.
The obtained zeta potential indicates the relative stability of the nanoparticles in water. The absorption spectra of zinc oxide nanoparticles showed a specific absorption peak for zinc oxide at 360 nanometers confirming the synthesis of the nanoparticles. X-ray diffraction analysis revealed distinct crystalline peaks that are characteristic of zinc oxide.
