Zinc oxide has been used in diverse applications for thousands
of years [1] and could reasonably be considered to be a mature
engineering material [2] with annual production now approaching
one and a half million tons [3]. Nevertheless, there has been a
steep rise in the number of scientific publications addressing this
material in the last decade indicating significant new interest. In
the present review we analyze this phenomenon, and show that it
is driven by the prospect of many exciting new technological functionalities
for ZnO. While recent reviews describing aspects of the
condensed matter physics, surface chemistry, synthesis techniques
and semiconducting applications of ZnO are available [4–12], these
have generally neglected the more practical aspects of the subject,
including the extensive patent literature on ZnO. In our opinion
the latter contains a considerable amount of accumulated insight
and information. Therefore, we provide a contemporary review
of the literature – both scientific and patent – that is oriented
towards larger scale industrial production methods and commercial
applications of ZnO. Discussion of intermediate products such
as ZnO-bearing slags or fumes or “metallurgical grade” ZnO is
largely excluded from the review as these non-standard materials
require further processing before they become suitable for end-use.