10.3390/cryst10060549 Quantum-Sized Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles Synthesised within Mesoporous Silica (SBA-11) by Humid Thermal Decomposition of Zinc Acetate Aqeel Tariq Dr. Department of Science, College of Basic Education, The Public Authority of Applied Education and Training (PAAET) P.O. Box 23167, Safat 13092, Kuwait tm.aqeel@paaet.edu.kw Greer Heather F. Dr. Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK hfg24@cam.ac.uk 26 06 2020 10 6 23 06 2020 e549 A modified facile method is presented to synthesise quantum-sized zinc oxide nanoparticles within the pores of a mesoporous silica host (SBA-11). This method eliminates the 3 h alcohol reflux and the basic solution reaction steps of zinc acetate. The mesoporous structure and the ZnO nanoparticles were analysed by X-ray diffractometry, transmission electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, nitrogen sorption analysis and UV−VIS spectroscopy. These tests confirm the synthesis of ~1 nm sized ZnO within the pores of SBA-11 and that the porous structure remained intact after ZnO synthesis. Public Authority for Applied Education and Training BE-15-04 © 1996-2020 MDPI (Basel, Switzerland) 2020 This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited quantum ZnO nanoparticles SBA-11 XPS UV–VIS XRD Crystals Crystals 2073-4352 MDPI