Hydrogen and air detonation (deflagration) synthesis of carbon-encapsulated iron nanoparticles

With ferrocene as a precursor, carbon-encapsulated iron nanoparticles are synthesized through detonation of a gas mixture of hydrogen and air in a titanium detonation tube. XRD and TEM characterization shows that a downward trend in the size of particles can be observed with increasing amounts of the precursor. However, no further decrease occurs when the size of nanoparticles reaches approximately $\approx$ 40 nm, after which they remain in the range of 30–50nm. The initial temperature of the detonation tube at 353 K is the optimal initial temperature for the synthesis. The average grain size of the synthesized products becomes larger as the temperature of detonation increases.