Preparation, Microstructural and Optical Characterization of NiO Nanoparticles

A fine NiO powders were prepared by a homogeneous precipitation method with an aqueous solution of nickel nitrate hexahydrate and citric acid. The microstructure, surface morphology of NiO were characterized by thermo gravimetric (TGA) analysis and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) , infrared (IR) spectroscopy. The experiment results show that the NiO nanoparticles are cubic structure with spherical shape and well dispersed, the particle size distribution ranging from 7 to 28nm with the average particle size is about 15.5nm. The infrared absorption band of NiO nanoparticles shows blue shifts compared with that of bulk NiO. The optical band gap energy value 3.81eV has been determined from absorbance spectra in strong absorption region.