Salt-assisted combustion synthesis of highly dispersed perovskite NdCoO3 nanoparticles

Highly dispersed perovskite NdCoO3 nanoparticles with an average particle size of about 9 nm have been successfully prepared by a novel salt-assisted combustion process. The effects of NaCl content and calcination temperature on the characteristics of the products were investigated by XRD, TEM and BET nitrogen adsorption. The facile introduction of NaCl in the conventional combustion synthesis process was found to result in the formation of well-dispersed perovskite nanoparticles and increase specific surface area of the resultants from 1.70 to 43.22 m(2).g(-1). A mechanism scheme was proposed to illustrate the possible formation processes. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.