Date of Award

2011-01-01

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Material Science and Engineering

Advisor(s)

Chintalapalle V. Ramana

Abstract

Iron (Fe) oxides and hydroxides are common and abundant materials. They exhibit diverse crystal structures, properties and phenomena by virtue of which they find a wide range of scientific and technological applications. Controlled growth and manipulation of the specific structure and electronic behavior to meet the requirements of a given application is a challenging problem in view of many possible phases and composition of the resulting materials. The preparation method and experimental conditions will, therefore, significantly affect the properties and performance of Fe oxides and hydroxides. The goal of the project is to obtain Fe-based oxide/hydroxide catalytic materials and to derive a comprehensive understanding of the microstructure and electronic properties. The obvious relevance of the work it to optimize conditions to produce high quality Fe- based nanomaterials capable of dissociating the water molecules and produce hydrogen. The present approach to synthesize Fe oxides and hydroxides is based on a chemical route involving Fe-containing compounds. First step involved is the precipitation of Fe hydroxide/oxide particles from iron salts in an aqueous and non-aqueous media. The resultant precipitates consist of agglomerated nanoparticles. The size of the resulting Fe oxide and hydroxide nanoparticle depends on the concentration of the original solutions. After precipitation, a weak organic acid is added to obtain different concentrations. The samples were obtained at different intervals of time. Structure modification and dispersion of nanoparticles have been achieved and correlated with the concentration of the organic acid. It is demonstrated that the microstructure can be controlled in order to tune the materials' electronic behavior. In addition, the incorporation of various metal ions into the host matrix is explored in order to control the structure and electronic properties. The results are presented and discussed in detail in this dissertation.

Language

en

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Size

127 pages

File Format

application/pdf

Rights Holder

Guillermo Carbajal Franco

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