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Molten-Salt Synthesis of Complex Metal Oxide Nanoparticles
Published on: October 27, 2018
Direct Atomic-Scale Insight into the Precipitation Formation at the Lanthanum Hydroxide Nanoparticle/Solution
Yanfu Wei1, Peng Yuan2, Junming Zhou3
1National Observation and Research Station of Coastal Ecological Environments in Macao, Macao Environmental Research Institute, Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa, Macao 999078, China.
Abstract:
Understanding precipitation formation at lanthanum hydroxide (La(OH)3) nanoparticle-solution interfaces plays a crucial role in catalysis, adsorption, and electrochemical energy storage applications. Liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy enables powerful visualization with high resolution. However, direct atomic-scale imaging of the interfacial metal (hydro)oxide nanostructure in solutions has been a major challenge due to their beam-driven dissolution. Combining focused ion beam and aberration-corrected high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy, we present an atomic-scale study of precipitation formation at La(OH)3 nanoparticle interfaces after reaction with phosphate. The structure transformation is observed to occur at high- and low-crystalline La(OH)3 nanoparticle surfaces. Low-crystalline La(OH)3 mostly transformed and high-crystalline ones partly converted to LaPO4 precipitations on the outer surface. The long-term structure evolution shows the low transformation of high-crystalline La(OH)3 nanoparticles to LaPO4 precipitation. Because precipitation at solid-solution interfaces is common in nature and industry, these results could provide valuable references for their atomic-scale observation.
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