Combined SANS and SAXS study of the action of ultrasound on the structure of amorphous zirconia gels

N N Gubanova; A Ye Baranchikov; G P Kopitsa; L Almásy; B Angelov; A D Yapryntsev; L Rosta; V K Ivanov

doi:10.1016/j.ultsonch.2014.11.012

Combined SANS and SAXS study of the action of ultrasound on the structure of amorphous zirconia gels

Ultrason Sonochem. 2015 May:24:230-7. doi: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2014.11.012. Epub 2014 Nov 15.

Authors

N N Gubanova¹, A Ye Baranchikov², G P Kopitsa¹, L Almásy³, B Angelov⁴, A D Yapryntsev⁵, L Rosta³, V K Ivanov⁶

Affiliations

¹ Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, Gatchina, Russia.
² Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. Electronic address: a.baranchikov@yandex.ru.
³ Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary.
⁴ Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Prague, Czech Republic.
⁵ Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.
⁶ Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia; National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia.

PMID: 25466600
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2014.11.012

Abstract

In the present work, we have studied for the first time the combined effect of both sonication and precipitation pH on the structure of amorphous zirconia gels synthesized from zirconium(IV) propoxide. The techniques of small-angle neutron and X-ray scattering (SANS and SAXS) and low temperature nitrogen adsorption provided the integral data on the changes in the microstructure and mesostructure of these materials caused by ultrasonic (US) treatment. Amorphous ZrO2·xH2O synthesized under ultrasonic treatment was found to possess a very structured surface, characterized by the surface fractal dimension 2.9-3.0, compared to 2.3-2.5 for the non US-assisted synthesis, and it was also found to possess a higher specific surface area, while the sizes of the primary particles remain unchanged.

Keywords: Fractals; Mesostructure; Small-angle X-ray scattering; Small-angle neutron scattering; Ultrasonication; Zirconia.