NUCLEATION LABORATORY

ULTRAFINE NICKEL PARTICLES GENERATED BY LASER-INDUCED GAS PHASE PHOTONUCLEATION  

NanoStructured Materials, 8(7), pp.879-888, Oct.-Nov. (1997)

Honghai He, Richard H. Heist

and

Brian L. McIntyre and Thomas N. Blanton

RESEARCH SUMMARY

    A UV laser-assisted gas phase photoinduced nucleation process is used to generate nickel ultrafine particles (UFPs) from ambient temperature Ni(CO)4 precursor.  Transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffractometry are used to characterize the nanostructure and morphology of the UFPs.  Ethane hydrogenolysis was used to probe the reactivity of the nickel UFPs as heterogeneous catalysts.  Resulting from that investigation, we find these UFPs to show high chemical reactivity and extraordinary resistance to deactivation.  X-ray diffractometry analysis reveals a hexagonal Ni3C phase in those UFPs that were used to catalyze the ethane hydrogenolysis reaction in excess ethane. 

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