Synthesis and characterization of a Bi-Oxide nanoparticle ZnO/CuO by thermal decomposition of oxalate precursor method

In the present work, we report the synthesis of binary nano metal oxides such as Zinc /Copper Oxide via novel dry synthetic methods such as thermal decomposition of oxalate precursor. The synthesis route involves facile solid-phase mechanochemical activation of a physical mixture of simple copper/zinc salts and oxalic acid, followed by calcination of the as-ground oxalate precursors at 450◦C. X-ray powder diffractometry (XRD), infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to the thermal spectroscopic, structural, morphological characterization and surface area determination of the product respectively . An average nanocrystallite size of 5.0 nm was obtained for Zn/Cu, as estimated by the Scherrer’s equation.