A Factorial Design Approach for Hydrothermal Synthesis of Phase-Pure AgInO₂ : A Parametric Optimization Study

Owing to a wide range of industrial applications and fundamental importance, delafossite compounds have gathered tremendous interest in research community. In this study, the formation of hexagonal nanoplates of AgInO₂ mainly dominated by (00l) facets with no metallic Ag impurity, reported using a facile hydrothermal route at 180 °C using KOH as mineralizer by adopting a factorial design approach. Rietveld analysis of the powder XRD pattern and SAED confirms the rhombohedral system of AgInO₂ . FE-SEM image shows a uniform hexagonal plate-like morphology with an average width of about 300 nm and thickness of 70 nm. XPS and EDX analysis confirm potassium ion free AgInO₂ . A specific surface area of about 48.5 m²  g^-1 is arrived from N₂ adsorption studies. Temperature-dependent AC impedance measurements revealed an activation energy of 0.24 eV/f.u. Further, TG-DTA studies found that the compound is stable in air up to 595 °C.