0000000000281595
AUTHOR
Alice Antonello
Synergy of Miniemulsion and Solvothermal Conditions for the Low-Temperature Crystallization of Magnetic Nanostructured Transition-Metal Ferrites
Crystalline first-row transition-metal (Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, and Zn) ferrites were prepared by an unprecedented synergetic combination of miniemulsion synthesis and solvothermal route, pursuing unconventional conditions in terms of space confinement, temperature, and pressure. This synergy allowed for obtaining six different crystalline ferrites at much lower temperature (i.e., 80 °C) than usually required and without any postsynthesis thermal treatment. X-ray diffraction (XRD) revealed that analogous ferrites synthesized by miniemulsion at ambient pressure or in bulk (i.e., from an aqueous bulk solution and not in the confined space of the miniemulsion droplets) either at ambient pressure o…
Exploring wet chemistry approaches to ZnFe2O4 spinel ferrite nanoparticles with different inversion degrees: A comparative study
Zinc ferrite (ZnFe2O4) spinel nanocrystals were synthesised through three different low-temperature routes, namely hydrothermal, combined miniemulsion/hydrothermal, and microwave-assisted non-aqueous sol–gel synthesis. With the aim of studying the influence of the respective approach on the structural evolution of the compounds during the synthetic process, the samples were prepared with different processing times. The resulting nanoparticles were inspected with a wide range of analytical techniques, both with regards to the local (X-ray absorption spectroscopy – XAS) and the long-range (Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction – XRD) order.
Colloidally Confined Crystallization of Highly Efficient Ammonium Phosphomolybdate Catalysts
Nanodroplets in inverse miniemulsions provide a colloidal confinement for the crystallization of ammonium phosphomolybdate (APM), influencing the resulting particle size. The effects of the space confinement are investigated by comparing the crystallization of analogous materials both in miniemulsion and in bulk solution. Both routes result in particles with a rhombododecahedral morphology, but the ones produced in miniemulsion have sizes between 40 and 90 nm, 3 orders of magnitude smaller than the ones obtained in bulk solution. The catalytic activity of the materials is studied by taking the epoxidation of cis-cyclooctene as a model reaction. The miniemulsion route yields APM particles ca…
Zirconium oxocluster/polymer hybrid nanoparticles prepared by photoactivated miniemulsion copolymerization
The photoactivated free radical miniemulsion copolymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) and the zirconium oxocluster Zr4O2(methacrylate) 12 is used as an effective and fast preparation method for polymer/inorganic hybrid nanoparticles. The oxoclusters, covalently anchored to the polymer network, act as metal-organic cross-linkers, thus improving the thermomechanical properties of the resulting hybrid nanoparticles. Benzoin carbonyl organic compounds were used as photoinitiators. The obtained materials are compared in terms of cross-linking, effectiveness of cluster incorporation, and size distribution with the analogous nanoparticles produced by using conventional thermally induced free …