Mechanochemical synthesis of Ni3Al nano-alloy

Abstract

The nickel aluminide nanoalloy was synthesized by chemical reduction of nickel(II) chloride hexahydrate salt by aluminum nanoparticles under basic (S1) and acidic (S2) conditions in the solid-state reaction. Aluminum nanoparticles were prepared by a novel wire drawing method in the presence of lubricating oil. Analysis of products (S1) and (S2) show that the prepared samples have different fraction component of compounds, morphologies, particle size and magnetic properties. The products were characterized by IR, XRD, FESEM, and VSM. The absorption bands do not appear in FTIR spectra of products (S1) and (S2) while, the spectra of pre- cursors show all the absorption bands of nickel(II) chloride hexahydrate salt. The X-ray diffraction pattern results show the presence of three phases unreacted aluminum, metallic nickel and Ni3Al nano-alloy in products. The weight fraction of Ni3Al nanoparticles is calculated by the Rietveld method. Quantitative XRD analysis of (S1) shows a weight fraction of 33.90 % Ni3Al, 61.19 % metallic nickel and unreacted aluminum 4.90 % also, calculation in (S2) shows weight fraction Ni3Al, metallic nickel and unreacted aluminum 19.75, 77.83 and 2.42 % respectively. FESEM image of S1 and S2 show particles size distribution in the region 11–17 nm and 40–150 nm respectively. The hysteresis loop of S1 and S2 show magnetic saturation 7. 90 emu/g and 17.04 emu/g respectively.