Issue 42, 2015

Heat-induced spinodal decomposition of Ag–Cu nanoparticles

Abstract

Solvothermal synthesis was used for Ag–Cu nanoparticle (NP) preparation from metallo-organic precursors. The detailed NP characterization was performed to obtain information about nanoparticle microstructure and both phase and chemical compositions. The resulting nanoparticles exhibited chemical composition inside a FCC_Ag + FCC_Cu two-phase region. The microstructure study was performed by various methods of electron microscopy including high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) at an atomic scale. The HRTEM and X-ray diffraction studies showed that the prepared nanoparticles form the face centred cubic (FCC) crystal lattice where the silver atoms are randomly mixed with copper. The CALPHAD approach was used for predicting the phase diagram of the Ag–Cu system in both macro- and nano-scales. The predicted spinodal decomposition of the metastable Ag–Cu nanoparticles was experimentally induced by heating on an X-ray powder diffractometer (HT XRD). The nucleation of the Cu-rich phase was detected and its growth was studied. Changes in the Ag-rich phase were observed in situ by X-ray diffraction under vacuum. The heat treatment was conducted at different maximum temperatures up to 450 °C and the resulting particle product was analysed. The experiments were complemented by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements up to liquidus temperature. The start temperatures of the spinodal phase transformation and particle aggregation were evaluated.

Graphical abstract: Heat-induced spinodal decomposition of Ag–Cu nanoparticles

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
13 jan. 2015
Accepted
14 apr. 2015
First published
01 maí 2015

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2015,17, 28277-28285

Heat-induced spinodal decomposition of Ag–Cu nanoparticles

J. Sopoušek, O. Zobač, J. Buršík, P. Roupcová, V. Vykoukal, P. Brož, J. Pinkas and J. Vřešt'ál, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2015, 17, 28277 DOI: 10.1039/C5CP00198F

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements