Study of ZnAl2O4 spinel nanoparticles synthesized using gelatin as organic precursor

• Autor(a) principal: Macedo,H. P.
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Medeiros,R. L. B. A., Nascimento,R. A. B., Oliveira,A. A. S., Figueredo,G. P., Braga,R. M., Melo,D. M. A.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Cerâmica (São Paulo. Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0366-69132019000200180
• topic: zinc aluminate; gelatin; in situ XRD; spinel; nanoparticles

Abstract In this work, zinc aluminate spinel powders were prepared by a fast, simple, eco-friendly and low-cost modified Pechini method using commercial gelatin as the organic precursor. The materials were calcinated at 600, 700 and 800 °C and characterized by thermogravimetric analysis, in situ and ex situ X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2-adsorption/desorption isotherms and scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that single phase ZnAl2O4 particles with spinel structure were successfully obtained resulting in a high purity, nanometric, homogeneous and mesoporous materials. The in situ XRD results showed that the crystalline spinel structure of ZnAl2O4 started forming at a temperature lower than 600 °C, revealing powders with crystallite size smaller than 40 nm, which increased with increasing the temperature (91% of increase between 600 and 800 °C). The effect of calcination time showed that the materials calcinated at 600 °C for 3 h presented the higher percentage of crystallite growth due to the increase of crystallinity. The ZnAl2O4 samples retained their pore size up to 700 °C.