Synthesis of nanowires by spray pyrolysis

Abstract

Nanowires of carbon as well as nickel-carbon (Ni-C) were synthesized by spray-pyrolysis. The carbon nanowires were synthesized using methanol as a precursor while the Ni-C nanowires were obtained by using nickel chloride methanol solution as feed. It was found that low argon carrier gas flow rates (100 cm 3 /min) and suitable reaction temperatures ( 700 °C) were found to be critical for the formation of wired structures. The formation of nanowires was quite sensitive to reaction temperature. Nanowires could not form at temperatures higher than 900 °C in the presence of hexane. Ruthenium chloride and nickel chloride dissolved in hexane and methanol resulted in carbon coated binary metallic nanoparticles. Morphological differences of carbon nanowires, Ni-C wires and carbon coated binary nanoparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDS). The formation mechanism for the wired structures is proposed to explain the structural results obtained. Copyright © 2009 Kalyana C. Pingali et al.