Shape controlled synthesis of superhydrophobic zinc coordination polymers particles and their calcination to superhydrophobic ZnO

In this paper, superhydrophobic Zinc-CPPs (coordination polymer particles) with controllable shapes were synthesized by an in situ ligand generating reaction in combination with monofunctional ligands as capping reagents. The as-synthesized samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersion X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. The Zn-CPPs exhibit superhydrophobicity. Crystalline ZnO particles were formed from the calcination of Zn-CPPs, exhibiting superhydrophobicity and good photocatalytic activity.