Abstract

The Zn/Co/Fe-layered double hydroxide nanowires are synthesized via a reverse microemulsion method by using cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB)/n-hexane/n-hexanol/water as soft-template. For the purpose of synthesis of ZnSO₄.7H₂O, CoSO₄.7H₂O, Fe₂(SO₄)₃.7H₂O and urea were used as raw materials. The synthesized LDHs are characterised by powder x-ray diffraction (P-XRD), Fourier Transformed-Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and high resolution transmission electron microscope (HR-TEM). The characterised data revealed that the resulting Zn/Co/Fe-LDHs possessed high crystallinity, microspheric morphology and porous structure to be potentially used as catalyst. Thus, the present work has demonstrated the low-cost and the easiest way of synthesizing the LDHs which could be applied potentially as a multifunctional catalyst in the field of materials science.

Keywords

Microemulsion, Nanowires, Template, Multifunctional, Porosity, Crystallinity