Title: Utilisation of fly ash by synthesising FA-ZnO composite as semiconducting material

Authors: Sushree Saraswati Panda; Hara Prasada Tripathy; Priyabrata Pattanaik; Dilip Kumar Mishra; Sushanta Kumar Kamilla

Addresses: Semiconductor Research Laboratory, Faculty of Engineering and Technology (ITER), Siksha 'O' Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar, Odisha – 751030, India ' Semiconductor Research Laboratory, Faculty of Engineering and Technology (ITER), Siksha 'O' Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar, Odisha – 751030, India ' Semiconductor Research Laboratory, Faculty of Engineering and Technology (ITER), Siksha 'O' Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar, Odisha – 751030, India ' Semiconductor Research Laboratory, Faculty of Engineering and Technology (ITER), Siksha 'O' Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar, Odisha – 751030, India ' Semiconductor Research Laboratory, Faculty of Engineering and Technology (ITER), Siksha 'O' Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar, Odisha – 751030, India

Abstract: In consideration to synthesise low value added fly ash (FA) to high value added product, an attempt has been carried out to synthesise composite materials having semiconducting properties out of the mixture of industrial waste fly ash (FA) and zinc oxide (ZnO). A series of FA-ZnO nanocomposites with the variation of FA and ZnO have been synthesised by chemical route followed by sintering at 1,300°C to produce the end product. To confer the end product, structural (XRD, FTIR) and surface morphological (TEM) studies have been carried out to identify the formation of the nanocomposites. pH level studies has been undertaken to find the feasibility of the prepared composites for different electrochemical bio sensing applications. The optical (UV-VIS) and electrical (IV) characterisations have been carried out to realise the semiconducting nature of the prepared sample. The obtained band gaps of the prepared materials are varying from 2.51 eV to 3.09 eV depending on the fly ash content in ZnO.

Keywords: fly ash; zinc oxide; X-ray diffraction; XRD; transmission electron microscopy; TEM; FTIR; UV-VIS.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMATEI.2021.115597

International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation, 2021 Vol.12 No.2, pp.103 - 114

Received: 23 Apr 2020
Accepted: 31 Aug 2020
Published online: 11 Jun 2021 *

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