Chemical reduction technique for the synthesis of nickel nanoparticles

Chemical reduction technique was used to synthesize nickel powder using hydrazine hydrate as reducing agent, nickel chloride hexahydrate as precursor and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as capping agent in ethylene glycol medium. Experiments were carried out with mole ratios 13:1 and 20:1 of hydrazine to nickel chloride hexahydrate by keeping the amounts of ethylene glycol and NaOH as constant. Variation of capping agent concentration and temperature was also studied. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis was performed and the crystal size was calculated using Debye-Scherrer equation. XRD peaks where corresponds to that of the face-centered cubic nickel crystals, in accordance with the literature. Likewise, no oxygen peaks were found in XRD pattern, which confirm the absence of oxide formation in nickel. Morphological studies were performed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the elemental composition was determined using energy dispersive X-ray analysis. The elemental composition was found to be nickel with small traces of oxygen.