Zinc complexes were directly prepared by using zinc metal as sacrificing anode in a cell without separating the cathode and anode spaces. The products were characterized by using FT-IR, NMR and Raman spectroscopy. The influence of temperature and conductive additives on product yield was also investigated. The study shows that direct electrochemical preparation of zinc complexes such as Zn (acac)_2, Zn (OEt)_2 (acac)_2 and Zn(OBu)_2(acac)_2 has high current efficiency and electrolysis yield than that of Zn (OR)_2. Furthermore, these zinc complexes have high purity and can be directly used as sol-gel precursor for preparation of nanometer ZnO. Experimental results show that controlling temperature in the range of 50 ～ 60 ℃, selecting R_4NBr as conductive additives and preventing zinc anode from being covered by electrochemical products can improve product yield. The study also shows that nano-sized ZnO prepared by this method has monoclinic structure with a narrow size distribution of 5-10 nm.

Key words: ZINC COMPLEX, RAMAN SPECTROMETRY, SOL-GEL PROCESS, NANOPHASE MATERIALS, ZINC OXIDE