Abstract
Ni-Cu-Sn nanocomposite was prepared for the first time, in the mechanochemical way complementing with the investigation of milled Cu-Sn and Ni-Sn systems using grinding additives. Several chemicals were examined like NaCl, PVP, CTAB, SDS, oleylamine, n-heptane, ethylene and polyethylene glycol. X-ray diffractometry attested the varying effects of the additives on the quality and quantity of the milling end-products: in several cases complete or partial mechanical alloying occurred, while in some instances, the segregation of the starting materials were also observed verified by spatially-resolved energy dispersive X-ray analysis. Dynamic light scattering measurements revealed the efficacy of additive amounts used on particle size reduction and size distribution of the milled bimetallic and trimetallic solids. For the Ni-Cu-Sn nanocomposites, the average solvodynamic diameters varied in the range 180–700 nm with 0.21–0.48 polydispersity values. The application of CTAB and PVP resulted in aggregated nanoparticles under 100 nm size in significant amounts verified by the transmission electron microscopy images. The analysis of the surface plasmon resonance bands of the nanocomposites indicated the presence of the Cu(I) oxide phase, while the calculated textural parameters increased up to 5 and 24 m2/g and 0.01–0.05 cm3/g specific surface area and total pore volume values, respectively, compared to the 0.8 m2/g and 0.002 cm3/g of the milling in the absence of additives.
Highlights
Objects, which are of 1 and 100 nm size in at least one dimension, are called nanoparticles (NPs)
The mechanochemical synthesis of the bimetallic nanocomposites was started with the investigation of the effect of the surfactants on the end-products in the milling of Cu and Sn metal powder by X-ray diffractometry
Since the number of the known and even the generally used surfactants are extremely large, the quantity and quality of the additives were varied in wide range using liquid and solid ones, non-ionic (n-heptane, ethylene glycol, polyethylene glycol, PVP, oleylamine), anionic (SDS) and cationic (CTAB) surface active agents with low and high molecular weights as well
Summary
Objects, which are of 1 and 100 nm size in at least one dimension, are called nanoparticles (NPs). Various preparation ways result in NPs/nanocomposites with fundamentally different morphology, i.e., structure and size, and in association with this, stability and physico-chemical properties of the products. The synthesis of Sn-rich cobalt- and nickel-containing intermetallics were published using mechanical alloying [41,42], as well as a rare solid-liquid ball milling technique for the preparation of Cu-Sn and Cu-Ni-Sn intermetallic powders [43]. Mechanochemical method was used for the preparation of Ru-Sn-Mo and Ru-Se-Mo NPs in the presence of isopropanol additive resulting in the formation of the physical mixtures of various bimetallic alloys and pure metals [47]. During this work, the main goal was the mechanochemical preparation of bi- (Cu-Sn and Ni-Sn) and trimetallic (Cu-Ni-Sn) nanocomposites via ball milling using commercial metal powders as starting materials. We attempted to establish the effect of the quality and the quantity of various additives (investigating the most often used surfactants in wet chemistry like CTAB, SDS and PVP) on the products obtained using a set ensemble of previously optimized instrumental parameters
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