The crystal structure and phase purity of the samples were investigated using powder XRD.
The powder X-ray diffraction study was performed using X’Pert diffractometer with Ka radiation of wavelength 1.5406 ˚A.
A beam voltage of 40 KV and a 30 mA beam current were used.
The data were recorded at a continuous scan rate of 0.31/min and the phase was identified with JCPDS database.
Fig. 1 represents the XRD patterns of synthesized ZnO.
All difractograms show the nine prominent peaks (indexed with JCPDS 36-1451) which are narrowed and highly intense.
This reveals that the formed products have good crystallinity.
The peak intensity of the (1 0 1) reflection for the as-prepared ZnO samples decreases in the order A34A24A1 and hence the crystallinity of the samples also deter in the same order.
From the peak intensities, it is also inferred that the growth velocity of the nano rods
formed at pH 9 is very high compared to those formed at pH of 11 and 13 which is confirmed by the length of the rods obtained from SEM images.
The average crystallite sizes of the as-prepared samples were determined using Debye Scherer’s formula (Eq. 1).
For the crystallite size analysis, the highly intense and sharp diffraction peak at 2y¼36.31 corresponds to the (1 0 1) diffraction of the ZnO hexagonal wurtzite phase is employed.