In-Situ Growth of ZnO Whiskers on Ti2ZnC MAX Phases

Yinan Ren; Zhihua Tian; Yan Zhang; Fushuo Wu; Hao Xie; Qianqian Zhang; Peigen Zhang; Zhengming Sun

doi:10.3390/ma16103610

In-Situ Growth of ZnO Whiskers on Ti₂ZnC MAX Phases

Materials (Basel). 2023 May 9;16(10):3610. doi: 10.3390/ma16103610.

Authors

Yinan Ren¹, Zhihua Tian¹, Yan Zhang¹, Fushuo Wu¹, Hao Xie^{1

2}, Qianqian Zhang¹, Peigen Zhang¹, Zhengming Sun¹

Affiliations

¹ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China.
² Liyang Zichen New Material Technology Co., Ltd., Changzhou 213000, China.

Abstract

ZnO whiskers have many applications, such as in medical and photocatalysis fields. In this study, an unconventional preparation approach is reported, realizing the in-situ growth of ZnO whiskers on Ti₂ZnC. The weak bonding between the layer of Ti₆C-octahedron and the Zn-atom layers leads to the easy extraction of Zn atoms from Ti₂ZnC lattice points, resulting in the formation of ZnO whiskers on the Ti₂ZnC surface. This is the first time that ZnO whiskers have been found to grow in-situ on Ti₂ZnC substrate. Further, this phenomenon is amplified when the size of the Ti₂ZnC grains is mechanically reduced by ball-milling, which bodes a promising route to prepare ZnO in-situ on a large scale. Additionally, this finding can also help us better understand the stability of Ti₂ZnC and the whiskering mechanism of MAX phases.

Keywords: Ti2ZnC MAX phase; ZnO whiskers; crystal growth; in-situ growth.

Abstract

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