A Facile Room Temperature Synthesis of Zinc Oxide Nanostructure and Its Influence on the Flame Retardancy of Poly Vinyl Alcohol

In this work, poly vinyl alcohol-ZnO nanocomposites were synthesized via two different in situ and ex-situ methods. In ex-situ, at first zinc oxide nanostructures were synthesized by one-step precipitation reaction between zinc acetate and sodium hydroxide. The effect of different surfactants such as poly vinyl pyrrolidone, poly vinyl alcohol and poly ethylene glycol on the morphology of ZnO nanostructures was investigated. Nanostructures were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy. The influence of ZnO nanostructures on the flame retardancy of the poly vinyl alcohol matrix was studied using underwriter laboratories UL-94 analysis.