Preparation And Characterization Of The Nanometer-scale Rare Earth Oxide Particles By Thermal Explosion

With the development of science research, nanometer scale materials have recently attracted a lot of research interests and developed very rapidly. Nanometer scale materials have unique properties, such as force, electricity, light, magnetism and heat effect due to their superficial effect, bulk effect, quantum dimension effect and macroscopic quantum tunneling effect. Especially nanometer scale rare earth oxide such as neodymium oxide samarium oxide have many properties and application which the traditional solid never have. In this paper, we discuss preparation of the nanometer-scale rare earth oxide particles such as Sm₂O₃, Nd₂O₃ and Ce_0.8Sm_0.2O_1.9 via an easy thermo-decomposition method of their complexes. The modification of the complexes and oxide particles are presented.(1) Preparation and modification of Sm₂O₃We Use Sm(NO₃)₃·6H₂O and nitro-benzoic acid as raw materials, and adjust pH to precipitation appear, and calcining this precipitation at given temperature, we can obtain the high purity Sm₂O₃. The influences of kinds of nitro-benzoic acid, raw materials ratio, reaction time, pH of solution and drying time on particle size were investigated. In addition, the products were characterized by transmission electron microscope (TEM), and the particle size of the product was 3-20nm and well dispersed. We can know the powder is very pure from the X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) results.(2) Preparation and modification of Nd₂O₃We Use Nd(NO₃)₃·6H₂O and nitro-benzoic acid as raw materials, adjust pH to precipitation appear. Calcining this precipitation at given temperature, we can obtain the nanometer-sized Nd₂O₃. The products were characterized by transmission electron microscope (TEM). The particle size was 3-20 nra. The powder synthesized by this method shows a high dispersion behaviors and its average size is increasing with the temperature increasing.(3) Preparation and modification of Sm_xCe_yO_zUsing Sm(NO₃)₃·6H₂O, Ce(NO₃)₂·6H₂O and nitro-benzoic acid as raw materials, and adjust pH to precipitation appear. Calcining this precipitation at given temperature and we can obtain the nanometer-sized Sm_xCe_yO_z. The particle size was 10-40 nm. The powder synthesized by this method shows a high dispersion behavior.