Synthesis of nanocrystalline ZnO-NiO mixed metal oxide powder by homogeneous precipitation method

Nanocrystalline ZnO-NiO mixed metal oxide powder has been successfully prepared via a simple homogeneous precipitation method in short time. The nanocrystalline sample was obtained at low calcination temperature (350 degrees C). Specific surface area, crystallite size and optical band gap of the samples depend on calcination temperature. The synthesized samples were characterized by means of powder X-ray diffraction, thermal gravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, surface area measurements, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray analysis, transmission electron microscopy and magnetic measurements. The synthesized powder samples have been tested for their catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol in the presence of sodium borohydride. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.