Preparation of ZnO particle with novel nut-like morphology by ultrasonic pretreatment and its luminescence property.

Novel nut-like zinc oxide crystal has been prepared by a low temperature hydrothermal method with the presence of Cu(2+) ion. It seemed that the ultrasonic pretreatment was the key factor during the preparation process. SEM observations revealed that the as-prepared ZnO crystal exhibited nut shape showing well-defined crystallographic facets. The cross-section of the ZnO crystal was hexagonal of about 800 nm-1 microm in diameter, and the aspect ratio was a little smaller than 1:1. The room temperature photoluminescence behavior of the nut-like zinc oxide crystal was much stronger than the reference samples.

Divisive effect of alcohol-water mixed solvents on growth morphology of calcium carbonate crystals.

Controlling the process of crystal growth is of importance to the biomineralization and materials science. In this work, some novel morphology of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) was precipitated in an ethanol-water binary solvent (EWBS) with a CaCl2/Na2CO3 reaction system. For the solutions of CaCl2/Na2CO3 in EWBS, the alcoholization and hydration of Ca2+ and CO3(2-) were discussed from the radial distribution functions by molecular dynamics simulations, and the number density profiles of water molecules around and approximately 15 A away from CO3(2-) were employed to reveal the distribution of water molecules. It is found that EWBS has a divisive effect on Ca2+ and CO3(2-), and the local inhomogeneity of EWBS would be enhanced by adding some Na2CO3 into it. This inhomogeneity results in an aqueous two-phase system as x E goes up to 0.7. In addition, the novel morphology of CaCO3 under different molar ratios of Ca2+/CO3(2-) and in different mixed solvents were confirmed by XRD and SEM, and the relationships between the morphology of CaCO 3 and the structural properties of mixed solvents were further explored.

Synthesis of size-controlled acid-resistant hybrid calcium carbonate microparticles as templates for fabricating "micelles-enhanced" polyelectrolyte capsules by the LBL technique.

Size-controlled, low-dispersed calcium carbonate microparticles were synthesized in the presence of the amphiphilic block copolymer polystyrene-b-poly(acrylic acid) (PS-b-PAA) by modulating the concentration of block copolymer in the reactive system. This type of hybrid microparticles have acid-resistant properties. By investigating the aggregation behaviors of PS-b-PAA micelles by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), the mechanism of hybrid calcium carbonate formation illustrated that the block copolymer served not only as "pseudonuclei" for the growth of calcium carbonate nanocrystals, but also forms the supramicelle congeries, a spherical framework, as templates for calcium carbonate nanocrystal growth into hybrid CaCO(3) particles. Moreover, this pilot study shows that the hybrid microparticle is a novel candidate as a template for fabricating multilayer polyelectrolyte capsules, in which the block copolymer is retained within the capsule interior after core removal under soft conditions. This not only facilitates the encapsulation of special materials, but also provides "micelles-enhanced" polyelectrolyte capsules.

The mechanical and NIR studies on ultrafine calcium carbonate treated by four surface modifiers.

Calcium carbonate was surface treated by acrylic acid monomer, its polymerization with varied mean molecular weight and PS/PAA copolymer. Coating efficiencies for these four series of surface-treated calcium carbonate were investigated. They differ from each other in many aspects. We hypothesize that the treating molecules bond to and align on the particle surface in different ways before and after monolayer coverage was reached. NIR spectra of surface-treated samples studied not only reflected the amount of bonded treating agents by means of the value of absorbance, but also gave rich structural information of surface layer. This gave us a powerful means to investigate the interface of particle surface.