Chemical oxidation of residual carbon from ZnAl2O4 powders prepared by combustion synthesis

The removal of carbon residue from ZnAl2O4 nanopowders by annealing at 500–800 °C leads to a decrease of specific surface area from 228.1 m2/g to 47.6 m2/g. At the same time, the average crystallite size increased from 5.1 nm to 14.9 nm. In order to overcome these drawbacks, a new solution for removing the carbon residue has been suggested: chemical oxidation using hydrogen peroxide. In terms of carbon removal, a H2O2 treatment for 8 h at 107 °C proved to be equivalent to a heat treatment of 1 h at 600 °C. The benefits of chemical oxidation over thermal oxidation were obvious. The specific surface area was much larger (188.1 m2/g) in the case of the powder treated with H2O2. The average crystallite size (5.8 nm) of ZnAl2O4 powder treated with H2O2 was smaller than the crystallite size (8.2 nm) of the ZnAl2O4 powder annealed at 600 °C.