Novel salt-assisted combustion synthesis of high surface area ceria nanopowders by an ethylene glycol-nitrate combustion process

A novel salt-assisted combustion process with ethylene glycol as a fuel and nitrate as an oxidant to synthesize high surface area ceria nanopowders was reported. The effects of various tunable conditions, such as fuel-to-oxidant ratio, type of salts, and amount of added salts, on the characteristics of the as-prepared powders were investigated by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and BET surface area measurement. A mechanism scheme was proposed to illustrate the possible formation processes of well-dispersed ceria nanoparticles in the salt-assisted combustion synthesis. It was verified that the simple introduction of leachable inert inorganic salts as an excellent agglomeration inhibitor into the redox mixture precursor leads to the formation of well-dispersed ceria particles with particle size in the range of 4 similar to 6 nm and a drastic increase in the surface area. The presence of KCl results in an over ten-fold increment in specific surface area from 14.10 m(2)center dot g(-1) for the produced ceria powders via the conventional combustion synthesis process to 156.74 m(2)center dot g(-1) for the product by the salt-assisted combustion synthesis process at the same molar ratio of ethylene glycol-nitrate.