A novel approach for the bioinspired synthesis of hierarchical zinc oxide (ZnO) microstructures using the polysaccharide chitosan (CTS) as templating agent is presnted. The hierarchically structured ZnO was prepared from Zn(II) nitrate solutions in the presence of dissolved CTS under acidic conditions by thermal decomplexation at 50 °C for 16 h. The resulting clear suspensions showed an intensive deep-level blue emission with a peak maximum at 447 nm (2.77 eV). The excitation spectrum of the acidic ZnO/chitosan suspensions exhibited a global maximum at 370 nm (3.35 eV). The UV-Vis spectra for acidic ZnO-CTS suspensions showed a medium absorption at 302 nm (4.12 eV) and an absorption edge at 243 nm (5.10 eV), whereas the acidic CTS solution exhibited a broad absorption with a maximum at 283 nm (4.38 eV) and an absorption edge at 215 nm (5.77 eV). After drying the prepared ZnO microstructures revealed a rod like shape with lengths varying from 1-20 µm and diameters from 0.1-2 µm observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The formation of ZnO (zincite) was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) confirmed that the ZnO rods were composed of individual nanosized crystallites (~5 nm). Severe beam damage of the ZnO rods suggested the intimate presence of the organic templating agent CTS.

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