Investigation of Nickel Salts for Fabrication of Nickel Nanofibers by Catalytic Reduction

Abstract

Nanofibers are fibrous nanostructures with diameters less than 1 μm and aspect ratios (length/diameter) higher than 100. They are characterized by high surface area-to-volume ratio effect, nanosize effect, and high aspect ratio. Our group has developed a unique technique for the rapid fabrication of silver nanofibers using a catalytic reduction method. This method reduces silver nitrate to silver using hydrogen gas that generated from the thermal decomposition of polymer materials under the effect of catalytic nanoparticles. The advantage of this method is that it does not require an external supply of hydrogen gas during the reduction, making it independent and simple. This advantage has high potential for applying the catalytic reduction method to fabricate other metallic nanofibers. In this paper, we report the results of our investigation of various nickel salts for the fabrication of nickel nanofibers using the catalytic reduction method. Although we were not succeeded in producing nickel nanofibers, nickel oxide nanofibers were achieved. This finding is useful for improving the conventional fabrication of nickel oxide nanostructures, which is complicated and time-consuming due to the heat treatment at high temperatures.