Kinetic formation of iron oxide nanoparticles using un- and γ-irradiated singular molecular precursor of Tris(pentanedionato)iron(III) complex

Abstract

Iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized from tris(pentanedionato)iron(III) singular molecular precursor through pyrolysis in static air. FT-IR, XRD, TGA, BET and SEM/EDS techniques were used to follow the reactions and identify the products. Single crystalline iron oxide sizes were found to be 18.23 ± 0.23, 16.42 ± 0.21, and 13.964 ± 0.11 nm using Scherrer equation, and the BET surface area were measured to be 110.909, 121.352, and 153.9911 m2g−1 for the corresponding iron oxides obtained through pyrolysis of un-irradiated and γ irradiated tris(2,4 pentanedionato)iron(III) with 100 and 300 kGy, respectively. Nonisothermal kinetics formation of iron oxide nanoparticles over the thermal decomposition of un-irradiated and γ-irradiated tris(pentanedionato)iron(III) molecular precursor with 100 and 300 kGy total γ-ray doses were investigated under air flow with a heating rate of 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 °C/min, from 25 °C to 500 °C. Kinetic parameters were attained through model-fitting and model-free approaches, and artificial isokinetic relationship (IKR) for multi-step processes. The decomposition for both un-irradiated and γ-irradiated tris(pentanedionato)iron(III) molecular precursor with 100 and 300 kGy total γ-ray doses proceed over one major step with two-dimensional diffusion (bi-dimensional particle shape) Valensi equation (D2).