(292g) Thermodynamic Analysis and Experimental Results of Fe-Ni-Cu Metal Nanoparticles Preparation by Solution Combustion Synthesis for Catalytic Hydrogen Production

Metal nano-particles have special properties and the development of innovative methods to minimize the cost of production is an active area of research. Potential applications of these nanopowders are well known in various fields such as: catalysis, pigments, electronic and magnetic materials, drug delivery etc. In our laboratory these materials are being prepared for their specific use in catalytic hydrogen generation from light alcohols. In our previous work we showed that catalysts prepared by solution combustion synthesis were extremely active at low temperatures for hydrogen production from oxidative reforming of methanol. Currently we are applying the solution combustion synthesis (SCS) approach for preparation of wide spectra of complex catalysts for other catalytic reactions, including oxidative reforming of ethanol and different bio fuels. Solution combustion synthesis is known for the production of metal oxide powders. For the first time pure nickel, cooper and iron nanopowders along with Cu-Ni bimetals were synthesized using conventional combustion synthesis. Thermodynamic analysis of the combustion system suggests the specific conditions required to create a reducing gas phase environment during the combustion reaction. TGA/DTA analyses of the precursors as well as the actual combustion system and other literature results have been used to support the hypothesis. XRD analysis of the quenched products confirms the formation of oxide phases and their subsequent reduction to pure metallic phase under optimized combustion settings. Based on these results, a reaction pathway is proposed to describe the evolution of metallic phase formation during SCS along with a general methodology for the solution combustion synthesis of pure metals and metal alloys..