An investigation on the influence of milling time and calcination temperature on the characterization of nano cerium oxide powder synthesized by mechanochemical route

The synthesis of nano-sized CeO2 powder was investigated via mechanochemical reactions between hydrate cerium chloride and sodium hydroxide as the starting materials. The process was followed by a subsequent calcination procedure. Characterization of as-synthesized powder was performed using X-ray diffraction, FTIR spectroscopy, Brunner–Emmett–Teller (BET) nitrogen gas absorption, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and particle size analyzer (PSA). The precursors were milled for different milling times and then were subjected to different heat treatment procedure at variable temperatures from 100 to 700 °C. According to the results, milling time and calcination temperatures induce paramountal effects on crystallite size and surface area of as-synthesized powders. In addition, the average activation energy for the growth of nanocrystals during calcination was determined to be about 12.53 kJ/mol, suggesting the influence of interfacial reactions on the crystallite growth during the calcination procedure.

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► Synthesis of nanosized CeO2 was carried out using mechanochemical reactions plus sequential calcinations procedure.
► The effect of milling time and calcinations procedure on crystallite size and surface area of the as-synthesized powders was investigated.
► The extended milling times were exposed to result in the smaller crystallite size, and hence higher surface area for the as-synthesized powder.
► Higher calcinations temperatures, on the other hand, led to the as-synthesized powder with a larger crystallite size and therefore, lower surface area.
► Activation energy for nanocrystallite growth was calculated during the calcinations procedure and the aforementioned crystallite growth was found to be conducted in the light of interfacial reactions.