Sol-gel zinc oxide nanoparticles: advances in synthesis and applications

Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO) exhibit numerous characteristics such as biocompatibility, UV protection, antibacterial activity, high thermal conductivity, binding energy, and high refractive index that make them ideal candidates to be applied in a variety of products like solar cells, rubber, cosmetics, as well as medical and pharmaceutical products. Different strategies for ZnO nanoparticles’ preparation have been applied: sol-gel method, co-precipitation method, etc. The sol-gel method is an economic and efficient chemical technique for the formation of nanoparticles (NPs) that has the ability to adjust the structural and optical features of the NPs. Nanostructures are generated from an aqueous solution including metallic and chemical precursors for modifying pH using either a gel or a sol as a yield. Among the various approaches, the sol-gel technique was revealed to be one of the desirable techniques for the synthesis of ZnO NPs. In this review, we explain some novel investigations about the synthesis of ZnO NPs via the sol-gel technique and applications of sol-gel ZnO NPs. Furthermore, we study recent sol-gel ZnO NPs, their significant characteristics, and their applications in biomedicals, antimicrobial packaging, drug delivery, semiconductors, biosensors, catalysts, photoelectron devices, and textiles.