REACTION OF NICKEL ATOMS WITH MOLTEN-SALTS - A NEW APPROACH TO THE SYNTHESIS OF NANOSCALE METAL, METAL-OXIDE, AND METAL CARBIDE PARTICLES

Ni atoms have been vaporized into a variety of molten salts using a rotary metal vapor synthesis (MVS) reactor. The salts employed in this study were potassium formate, a eutectic mixture of lithium, sodium, and potassium acetates, and a eutectic mixture of sodium and potassium nitrates. The solid Ni products obtained in these reactions are nanocrystalline Ni metal, nanocrystalline Ni3C, and nanocrystalline NiO respectively. The products have been characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy, elemental analysis, and BET single-point area analysis.