Oxalate-assisted synthesis of nano cobalt oxide

Abstract

Organic ligands are widely applied in preparation of metallic complexes, and in high temperatures, can be burned and eliminated from the coordination sphere, remaining only oxide group. In a reaction between cobalt nitrate, ammonium oxalate and F-127 as a surfactant to control the particles size, a cobalt-oxalate complex was formed. After performing Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) to find the optimum decomposition temperature, the precipitate was calcined and the resulted nano cobalt oxide was characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The crystalline pure and nanosized particles had the average size<40 nm.Oxalic acid, Nano cobalt oxide, Surfactant