Synthesis of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods and its phenol sensing by dielectric investigation

Abstract The chronic exposure of phenol to the human being usually results in major damage to several organs of the body. Therefore it is very important to develop a system to be sensitive for phenol detection. In this paper, ZnO nanorods are grown on silicon wafer by aqueous method and effect of phenol on its electrical parameters has been investigated. The dielectric impedance spectroscopy of ZnO nanorods in phenol environment has been carried out in the frequency range of 100 Hz-10 MHz at different applied voltages. It has been observed that electrical properties such as conductance, dielectric constant and dielectric loss increase greatly whenever ZnO nanorods come in contact with phenol. Further, the single dispersion phenomenon has been observed at 3.4 kHz of frequency, which is identified as molecular rotation along short axis of the molecule.