A Salt-Assisted Combustion Method to Prepare Well-Dispersed Octahedral MnCr2O4Spinel Nanocrystals
Well-dispersed nanocrystalline MnCr2O4was prepared by a salt-assisted combustion process using low-toxic glycine as fuel and Mn(NO3)2and Cr(NO3)3·9H2O as raw materials. The obtained products were characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The fabrication process was monitored by thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA). The phase formation process was detected by XRD, and MnCr2O4single phase with high crystallinity was formed at 700°C. TEM and SEM images revealed that the products were composed of well-dispersed octahedral nanocrystals with an average size of 80 nm. Inert salt-LiCl played an important role in breaking the network structure of agglomerated nanocrystallites.