Synthesis of designed Al- and Ga- doped zinc oxide (ZNO) particles and their application for antistatic coatings

Conductive polymer composites (CPCs) are generally used in products including floor coatings, antistatic-paints, ESD protecting packages, shoes and clothes where dissipation of electrostatic charges are desired. There are several polymeric materials and conductive fillers used in CPCs. In the literature, carbon-based materials or metal nano particles are added to these systems for obtaining desired conductivity. However, these filler materials exhibit some disadvantages such as uncontrolled agglomeration, aesthetically dark color and toxicity. The solution to these problems, developed by our research group, is utilization of Al and Ga doped ZnO particles with designed hexagonal platelet morphology synthesized by a modified solvothermal method. Such designed particles, denoted as Al and Ga doped MicNo (Micron + naNo) throughout the thesis, are composed of primary spherical nanoparticles agglomerated in a controlled manner to form micron sized hexagonal platelets. Accordingly, the research objectives of this study were to determine the role of Al and/or Ga doping on the structural and physicochemical properties of Al- and Ga-doped MicNo-ZnO particles and then to evaluate how the resulting properties affect the performance of antistatic resin in which such particles are used as fillers. The results showed that Al and Ga doped MicNo exhibit highly transparent characteristics in the visible range with low bulk resistivity values and they provide antistatic properties to polymer composites.