Abstract
Recently, materials with nanometer size have received tremendous attentiondue to their abnormal behavior and very attractive physical and chemical properties.In this thesis, a new technique (DC thermal plasma method) for producing nano metaloxide powders with high yield rate (0.8~1 kg/h) was thoughtfully studied. Theexcellent relationships of the crystalline phase of a product with the operationparameters were observed.The effects of operating parameters on the content ratio of tetrapod-ZnO (TZ) inthe DC thermal plasma produced ZnO nanopowders was investigated in Chapter 3. Ashigh as 65% tetrapod- ZnO content in the mixture (TZ-65) could be synthesized inpresent study. The optical properties, photostability and photocatalytic behaviors ofthe as-grown and the annealed TZ-65 ZnO nanopowders were examined in detail.In Chapter 4, the feasibility of applying tetrapod- ZnO in self-cleaning andanti-microbial coating was investigated. The effect of adding tetrapod- ZnOnanoparticles on surface morphology of the micro-nanoscale binary structuredZnO/SiO2, the retention of hydrophobicity, and the antimicrobial property of thecoating were examined.The well-crystallized Zinc stannate (Zn2SnO4) (ZTO) nanopowders werefabricated from commercial Zn-Sn alloy wire with the DC thermal plasma reactor andthoughtfully studied in Chapter 5. The effect of processing parameters (i.e. plasmaenergy density) on the phase composition of synthesized ZTO and the optical propertyof the ZTO nanopowders were studied. In addition, the I-V characteristics for ZTOdye-sensitized solar cell were also investigated.