Preparation and characterisation of compacts from nanostructured powder produced in an aerosol flow condenser

The inert gas condensation process (IGC) used for the production of nanostructured materials has a number of limitations. To overcome these difficulties an aerosol flow condenser (AFC) was built. This paper focuses on the production of nanostructured palladium compacts prepared from powders generated with the AFC as well as on the characterization of these compacts. The smallest average grain size of the compacts obtained was 4.3 nm. This represents a reduction of approximately 70% compared to the IGC process. While the density of the compacts was comparable to compacts produced by IGC, the light element (H, N, O) impurity content scaled with the surface-to-volume ratio. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.