3. Results and discussion
3.1. Characterization of ZnO anchored SiO2 NPs (ZSO-X)
The XRD patterns of ZSO-X (X < 14.2) showed amorphous structure
whatever the Zn amount, instead ZSO-14.2 and ZSO-50.2 with
higher ZnO loading, showed the reflections of the wurtzite phase
(JCPDS Card no. 36-1451, Fig. S1 in Supporting information).
TEM and HRTEM images of ZSO-4.0, ZSO-7.7 and ZSO-50.2 are
shown in Fig. 1.