Large scale synthesis of copper nickel alloy nanoparticles with reduced compressibility using arc thermal plasma process

Subrat Kumar Das,Mattia Gaboardi,G D Dhamale,Boby Joseph,Simone Pollastri,C Balasubramanian,Arkaprava Das

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-86776-0

Abstract

Among the various methods employed in the synthesis of nanostructures, those involving high operating temperature and sharp thermal gradients often lead to the establishment of new exotic properties. Herein, we report on the formation of Cu-Ni metallic alloy nanoparticles with greatly enhanced stiffness achieved through direct-current transferred arc-thermal plasma assisted vapour-phase condensation. High pressure synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) at ambient temperature as well as XRPD in the temperature range 180 to 920 K, show that the thermal arc-plasma route resulted in alloy nanoparticles with much enhanced bulk modulus compared to their bulk counterparts. Such a behaviour may find an explanation in the sudden quenching assisted by the retention of a large amount of local strain due to alloying, combined with the perfect miscibility of the elemental components during the thermal plasma synthesis process.

Highlights

Among the various methods employed in the synthesis of nanostructures, those involving high operating temperature and sharp thermal gradients often lead to the establishment of new exotic properties
About 130 randomly selected nanoparticles were taken for EDX analysis giving the compositioinal distribution of individual particles as shown in Figure S2 (ESI)
Homogeneous Cu-Ni binary alloy nano powders of size range 10–30 nm were successfully synthesized by thermal plasma based gas phase condensation method

Summary

Introduction

Among the various methods employed in the synthesis of nanostructures, those involving high operating temperature and sharp thermal gradients often lead to the establishment of new exotic properties. High pressure synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) at ambient temperature as well as XRPD in the temperature range 180 to 920 K, show that the thermal arcplasma route resulted in alloy nanoparticles with much enhanced bulk modulus compared to their bulk counterparts Such a behaviour may find an explanation in the sudden quenching assisted by the retention of a large amount of local strain due to alloying, combined with the perfect miscibility of the elemental components during the thermal plasma synthesis process. Solanki et al.[21] reports on the preparation of both Ni–Co and Ni–Fe by sol–gel method and successfully obtained nanoparticles in the size range of 10–20 nm, exhibiting lower coercivity as compared to Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:7629 Santos et al.[22] reports on the use of proteic sol–gel technique for the preparation of Fe–Ni alloy nanoparticles, obtaining a size range of 10–40 nm and concluding that the products have thermal stability against oxidation up to 250 °C

Methods

Results

Conclusion