Fractional factorial design for the optimization of hydrothermal synthesis of lanthanum oxide nanoparticles under supercritical water condition

Abstract

In this research, synthesis of lanthanum oxide nanoparticles using supercritical water as a reaction medium in batch type reactor was studied. The crystallographic identity and morphology of the synthesized nanoparticles were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The XRD patterns indicate that the well-crystallized lanthanum oxide nanocrystals can be easily obtained under the current synthetic conditions. The effect of four parameters includes temperature, reaction time; primary concentration of aqueous solution of lanthanum (III) nitrate and pH of starting solution on reaction efficiency, particle size and the BET surface area were investigated using 2 4−1 fractional factorial design. Finally, by employing a regression analysis a model based on effect of significant main variables and their binary interactions was proposed which can predict the percentage of reaction efficiency with acceptable confidence.