Interaction of hydrogen with ZnO nanopowders--evidence of hydroxyl group formation.

There have been many investigations to reveal the nature of the hydrogen gas and ZnO nanopowder interaction at elevated temperatures, while at present no conclusive description of such an interaction has been confidently reported. In this work, we demonstrate that a hydroxyl group is formed during this interaction, depending on size and relative crystallinity of nanopowders. Our in situ Raman spectroscopy investigations show that the interaction directly affects the intensity of the Raman signal at 483 cm(-1), relative to the peak at 519 cm(-1). Ex situ x-ray diffraction (XRD) and infrared spectroscopy also show extra peaks at 44° and 1618 cm(-1), respectively, after hydrogenation. These peaks were all identified as surface hydroxyl groups, which can be related to the formation of water on the ZnO nanopowder surfaces.

Surface defects on ZnO nanowires: implications for design of sensors.

Surface defects are commonly believed to be fundamentally important to gas-sensor performance. We examine the effect of gas coverage and ethanol orientation on its adsorption on the stoichiometric and oxygen deficient (101(-)0) nanowire surface. Our density functional theory calculations show that ethanol adsorbs in multiple stable configurations at coverages between 1/4 and 1 ML, highlighting the ability of ZnO to detect ethanol. Ethanol prefers to bind to a surface Zn via the adsorbate oxygen atom and, if a surface oxygen atom is in close proximity, the molecule is further stabilized by formation of a hydrogen bond between the hydrogen of the hydroxyl group and the surface oxygen. Two primary adsorption configurations were identified and have different binding strengths that could be distinguished experimentally by the magnitude of their OH stretching frequency. Our findings show that ethanol adsorbed on the oxygen deficient ZnO(101(-)0) surface has a reduced binding strength. This is due to either the lack of a hydrogen bond (due to a deficiency in surface oxygen) or to surface reconstruction that occurs on the defect surface that weakens the hydrogen bond interaction. This reduced binding on the oxygen deficient surface is in contrast to the defect enhanced gas-sensor interaction for other gases. Despite this difference, ethanol still acts as a reducing gas, donating electrons to the surface and decreasing the band gap. We show that multiple adsorbed ethanol molecules prefer to be orientated parallel to each other to facilitate the hydrogen bonding to the defect-free surface for enhanced interaction.