Synthesis of nickel and nickel oxide nanoparticles via heat-treatment of simple octanoate precursor

Nickel oxide nanoparticles have been synthesized via heat-treatment of a new precursor nickel octanoate Ni(octa)2; (octa = octanoate); in the range of 400–900 °C. The effect of calcination temperature on particle size has been investigated. When the calcinations were conducted in air from 400 to 900 °C, the precursor Ni(octa)2 was first changed to Ni, then to NiO. When calcined in argon atmosphere, Ni(octa)2 was directly converted into pure Ni at as low as 500 °C. The products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The synthesized NiO nanoparticles have quasi-spherical particles with size of about 24 nm. The optical absorption band gap of NiO nanoparticles is 3.41 eV.