Mechanical, structural and optical properties of pristine and PVA capped zinc oxide nanocomposites

Zinc oxide (ZnO) and Poly vinyl alcohol capped zinc oxide (PVA-ZnO) of different concentrations were synthesized by precipitation method. PVA capped ZnO nanoparticles were examined to study the influence of ZnO nanoparticles on PVA as it possesses various properties such as mechanical, structural and optical. The synthesized nanoparticles were analyzed using XRD, FTIR, UV-Vis, SEM EDAX techniques. In the FTIR spectrum, the peak observed at 559 cm-1 indicates M-O stretching in the samples which specifies the interaction of ZnO with PVA matrix. The XRD patterns confirmed the presence of ZnO nanoparticles and the size of the ZnO nanoparticles and PVA-ZnO NPs were 76 nm and 61 nm. The uniform dispersion of ZnO nanoparticles as well as the interaction of nanoparticles with the PVA matrix were also observed in SEM analysis and the purity of NPs was determined from EDS analysis. The UV-vis spectra show the light absorption behavior of the ZnO NPs and ZnO-PVA nanocomposites and they exhibited high absorption in the UV region. The mechanical properties such as tensile strength and elongation were also analyzed for the synthesized samples.