Hydrometallurgical Processing of Egyptian Zinc Concentrate for Preparation of Nano Crystalline Zinc Oxide Materials for Advanced Applications

Abstract

Zinc oxide possesses unique desirable optical, electrical and catalytic properties. Accordingly, it can be explored as a good candidate for the wide range of applications including electronics, optical devices, pigments and catalysis. Subsequently, the present work aims to utilize of non-sulfide zinc concentrate from Um-Geig, Eastern Desert, Egypt to produce zinc oxide nanomaterials through H2SO4 leaching precipitation strategy. Meanwhile, in comparison, ZnO nanomaterials have been synthesized from the pure zinc sulfate and zinc foil using co-precipitation and hydrothermal techniques, respectively. Such produced materials are employed for photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye, solid state dye sensitized solar cells and photoelectrochemical water splitting. Furthermore, the impact of Cu2+ and Sn2+ ions substituted ZnO nanomaterials on the photocatalytic efficiency and power conversion, % of solid state dye sensitized solar cells is also investigated. The present thesis comprises three chapters.

Chapter 1: Literature survey for energy sources, zinc oxide synthesis, properties and applications of zinc oxide in photocatalysis, solid state DSSCs and water splitting. Chapter 2: Experimental involved materials, procedures, Characterization techniques of the synthesized materials. Chapter 3: Results and discussion included hydrometallurgical treatment of Egyptian zinc concentrate and synthesis of ZnO nanomaterials from pure zinc sulfate and zinc foil using co-precipitation and hydrothermal strategi