Processes of microstructural evolution during high-energy mechanical treatment of ZnO and black NiO powder mixture

Kinetics of microstructural evolution in ZnO and NiO black powder mixture during prolonged high-energy mechanical ball milling were investigated by Scanning Electron Microscopy, Laser Particle Sizer, X-ray diffraction, Electron Paramagnetic Resonance, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and UV–vis Diffuse Reflection methods. The use of these methods allows us to control the macrostructural processes (ZnO particles and NiO granules grinding, the deagglomeration and “secondary agglomeration”), the microstructural processes (formation and annealing of different native defects in ZnO [VZn−:Zni0 (I), VZn− (II), and (VZn−)2− (III) centers] and NiO black) and the mechanothermal processes in samples. This allows to establish the relationship between microstructural evolution and the properties of the samples depending on the duration of the mechanical processing.