Continuous ultrasound assisted sonoelectrochemical synthesis of w-co alloy nanoparticles

Abstract

Tungsten-cobalt (W-Co) alloy nanoparticles have been synthesized from aqueous electrolyte by the sonoelectrochemical method applying the pulsed potential mode and continuous ultrasound irradiation. Simple electrochemical synthesis technique with the integrated ultrasonic bath (ultrasonic frequency 38 kHz, effective ultrasonic power 80 W) as the ultrasound source was used for this purpose. The shape and surface morphology of the synthesized W-Co nanoparticles were determined by transmission and scanning electron microscopy, as well as composition of W-Co nanoparticles was assessed by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The size of synthesized W-Co nanoparticles was investigated in detail by photon correlation spectroscopy. It was found that the size of produced spherical W-Co nanoparticles varied from 100 to 500 nm, and the average atomic ratio ofWand Co in nanoparticles was 23:4 correspondingly. The non-uniformity of synthesized particles in size and the reasons for that are discussed on the basis of the obtained results.