Nano-Porous Iron Yttrium Oxide Particles Synthesis as Value Addition to Sri Lankan Garnet Sand
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Date
2018
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Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
Garnet sand is a variety of mineral sands which is widely distributed in the southern
coastal line of Sri Lanka with large minable quantities. However, these sands have
limitedly use in industries, and more applications and products should be studied. In
this study, natural garnet sand, which was collected from Pulmoddai, Sri Lanka was
used to synthesize nanoporous iron yttrium oxide nanoparticles as it has wide range
of applications such as magnetic nanofilters and nanoabrasives. The X-Ray
diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed that the garnet sand consists of almandine
variety (Fe3Al2Si303). First, 5.000 g of powdered garnet sand was refluxed with 60
ml of 10 M HCI solution at 90 °C. The digested solution was filtered and 2 %
NaOH was added dropwise to the filterate until the pH becomes 14 in order to
precipitate iron hydroxide and heated at 80 °C to dissolve hydrated aluminium.
Then, the dry precipitate was dissolved in 10 M HNO3 and mixed with yttrium
hexahydrate trinitrate solution. Later, the mixture was mixed with citric acid and pH
was controlled to 2 using aqueous ammonia. The solution was heated at 80 °C until
a light brown xerogel is formed. Finally, the xerogel was calcined at 800 °C for 5 h.
Synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by XRD, Fourier Transform Infrared
(FT-IR) spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) techniques. The
SEM data revealed the nano-porous structure with 100 rim pore size, while FT-IR
and XRD results confirmed the FeYO3 composition of the nanomaterial. This work
can be extended to study the dye adsorption of the iron yttrium oxide nanoparticles,
encapsulation of the nanoparticles in the porous structure of synthesized particles
and its potential applications, its magnetic property and enhancing the filteration
property of the particles.
Keywords : Garnet, Sand, Yittrium Iron Garnrt, Nanoporous
Description
Keywords
Materials Sciences, Mineral Sciences