A team of scientists headed by Richard Robinson, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, have studied the evolution schematics of transformation from cobalt nanoparticles to cobalt phosphide nanocrystals.
Understanding the chemical transition of nanoparticles could result in better methods to modify their constitution, leading to innovative material characteristics.
Their research was published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry. During cobalt phosphide transformation, the research team observed nanoparticle hollowing as a result of unequal diffusivities of cations and anions. Cations diffuse out from the core quicker than anions can move inside, resulting in the formation of a hollow particle.
Robinson’s team was the first research team to demonstrate the complexity of ‘Kirkendal’ effect and the hallowing was explained in two steps. The process could be manipulated using their study and it facilitates the development of complicated particles with customizable properties for utilizing in various energy applications. Several characteristics of metal phosphides are superconductivity, magnetoresistance, ferromagnetism and catalytic activity.
The research received support from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, the Cornell Center for Materials Research and the Energy Materials Center at Cornell.
Source: http://www.cornell.edu