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.