The feasibility of using a zinc oxide rich waste (ZnO>95%), dust originated in the brasssmelting industrial process, as a raw material to produce targets to be used in radiofrequencymagnetron sputtering (RFMS) deposition of ZnO thin films was investigated.The ZnO waste was characterized in terms of chemical and mineralogical compositionsand particle size distribution. The targets were prepared by uniaxial pressing of the ZnOwaste followed by sintering in air at a temperature in the range 900-1200 ºC. The densityof sintered targets increased with sintering temperature, and zincite (ZnO) was thepredominant crystalline phase identified by X-ray diffraction (XRD). Scanning electronmicroscopy (SEM) revealed zincite grains, with an average size ~2 m and a nonhomogeneousmicrostructure due to the presence of dense aggregates. Preliminary MSthin film deposition tests on a glass substrate produced transparent nanostructured ZnOthin films with a homogeneous microstructure. Research work is underway to processZnO waste-based targets with an improved microstructure in order to obtain RFMSdeposited ZnO thin films with optimized final electrical and optical properties.
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