Abstract
Kinetic studies for the non-isothermal decomposition of un-irradiated and gamma-irradiated zirconium acetylacetonate, Zr(acac)(4), with 10(3) KGy total gamma-ray dose were carried out in static air. The results show that decomposition proceeds through multiple steps and ends with the formation of ZrO2 as a final solid residue without any significant changes in the thermal behaviour between un-irradiated and gamma-irradiated samples of Zr(acac)(4). The non-isothermal data for both un-irradiated and gamma-irradiated Zr(acac)(4) were analysed using both model-free and model-fitting approaches. Irregular variation of E-a with alpha indicates a complex decomposition mechanism involving multi-step processes including melting, sublimation and degradation and more than one model could be suggested to explain the results. Calcination of Zr(acac)(4) at 600 degrees C for five hours led to the formation of ZrO2 monodispersed nanoparticles, characterised by X-ray diffraction, FT-IR, SEM and TEM. This is the first example of preparing ZrO2 nanoparticles by solid state thermal decomposition of Zr(acac)(4).