Synthesis of Nickel Sulfide Nanoparticles from Single Source Precursor (Metal Xanthate Complexes) Using Melting (Solvent-Less) Method

Abstract Nickel sulfides are rich chemistry groups with discrete phases and stoichiometries, therefore they have various properties and applications. We herein prepare two single metal xanthate precursors [K(S2COBu)] Potassium butyl xanthate and [K(S2COPn)] Potassium pentyl xanthate using the melting method at two different temperatures 400 and 500°C to synthesize nickel sulfides nanoparticles. The nanoparticles were characterized using powder X-ray diffraction (p.XRD), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and imaged using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Two different nickel sulfides nanostructures obtained [Ni(S2COBu)3] and [Ni(S2COPn)3], the results from p.XRD show the sizes of the nanoparticles are (35.39±8.15 and 38.24±7.70 nm) at 400oC respectively, and (43.12±4.52 and 47.45±4.22 nm) respectively at 500oC. The result shows that the xanthate ligand affects the size of the nanoparticles as by increasing the alkyl chain length the size of the nanoparticles decrease. The (SEM) images show coral-like agglomerates, which are mainly assembled by spherical nanoparticles. EDX analysis shows stable and pure nickel sulfides with some variations in the elemental ratio of both nickel and sulfur according to the xanthate ligand used as a precursor to synthesis the nanoparticles. As a result, we introduce a simple, low cost and feasible synthesis of pure, stable, with definite size two nickel sulfides nanoparticles using metal xanthate ligands.