Surfactant-assisted morphological studies of α-Al₂O₃ nanoparticles

The present study deals with the synthesis and characterization of aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) nanopowders, it is very useful material as dielectric, ceramic and catalyst. The high-quality nanopowders were obtained by adding surfactants urea and sodium acetate. Further, all characterizations are done for with (urea and sodium acetate) and without surfactant. X-ray diffraction was used to characterize phase formation and the crystallite size of powder while, FTIR gives information about the particle composition and surface intermediates. X-ray diffraction spectra revealed the synthesized nanoparticles phase transformation were γ-Al₂O₃ to α-Al₂O₃ phase. Furthermore, the addition of urea and sodium acetate significantly reduced the crystalline size of α-Al₂O₃ nanoparticles from 43.94 nm to 35.12 nm respectively.