Preparation of nickel and Ni3Sn nanoparticles via extension of conventional citric acid and ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid mediated sol-gel method

Sol-gel method is conventionally applied to prepare oxides, carbides, and sulfides. In this work, the application field of sol-gel method is extended to metallic nanoparticles. By using citric acid (CA) and ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) mediated sol-gel method, metallic Ni (a and c) and Ni3Sn (b and d) alloy nanoparticles can be prepared when the heating treatments are performed under N2 protecting atmosphere. The Ni and Ni3Sn nanoparticles have face-centered-cubic (fcc) crystalline phase and ultrafine grain sizes. Diffraction peaks of (110) superstructure reflection plane of Ni3Sn nanoparticles can also be observed in Figure b, which can be considered as direct evidence of formation of alloy crystalline phase by performing this sol-gel method.334