Effect of strontium tantalate surface texture on nickel nanoparticle dispersion by electroless deposition

The present work studies the effect of smooth and porous texture of Sr2Ta2O7 on its surface modification with nickel nanoparticles through electroless deposition technique. The influence of temperature to control Ni nanoparticles loading amount and dispersion were analyzed. Nitrogen adsorption isotherms were used to examine surface texture characteristics. The morphology was observed by scanning electron microscopy (MEB) equipped with an energy dispersive spectrometry system (EDS), which was used to determine the amount of deposited Ni. The material with smooth texture (SMT) consists of big agglomerates of semispherical shape particles of 400 nm. Whilst the porous texture (PRT) exhibit a pore-wall formed of needles shape particles of around 200 nm in size. Results indicated that texture characteristics strongly influence the deposition reaction rate; for PRT oxide, Ni deposition can be done from 20 °C while for SMT oxide deposition begins at 40 °C. Analysis of Sr2Ta2O7 surface indicated that in both textures, Ni nanoparticles with spherical shape in the range of 10–20 nm were obtained.