The effect of precipitants on developing Mn _{2 O 3 nanopowder for NIR re reflective pigmentation study}

Abstract

In this study, various precipitation experiments were conducted using MnCl₂⋅4H₂O salt along with different carbonate precipitants such as K₂CO₃, Na₂CO₃, and NH₄HCO₃ to produce Mn₂O₃ phase and to investigate whether these oxides could function as NIR reflective pigments. The products produced with three different precipitants show the formation of MnCO₃ as an intermediate phase. After being heated at 600 °C for 3 to 12 h, these intermediate products crystallize into pure cubic Mn₂O₃ phase materials. The TGA and DTA plots of the products made with K₂CO₃ and Na₂CO₃ as precipitating agents show a similar trend, indicating a weight loss of 24.5%–26.5%, while NH₄HCO₃ exhibits a relatively higher weight loss of ∼35%. Different morphologies are observed for K₂CO₃, Na₂CO₃, and NH₄HCO₃ as precipitants, including spherical/agglomerated shapes, a mix of spherical particles and nanowires, and porous-like nanospheres, respectively. The broad Raman peak observed between 640 and 650 cm⁻¹ is associated with the characteristic Mn-O-Mn stretching bridge of the Mn₂O₃ phase. The Tauc plots yielded E_g values in the range of 1.35–1.85 eV for the Mn₂O₃ samples obtained from different precipitants. NH₄HCO₃-derived Mn₂O₃ exhibits ∼60% NIR reflectance (1350–2500 nm), far higher than 15%–30% for K₂CO₃/Na₂CO₃ samples.

Keywords

Mn-based oxides / Sesquioxide / Carbonate precipitants / Properties / NIR applications

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

S.A. Ashika: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Resources, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. S. Balamurugan: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Visualization, Validation, Supervision, Resources, Project administration, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. T.K. Sana Fathima: Resources, Investigation, Formal analysis.

Acknowledgements

The author, S.A. Ashika is indebted for the award of DST-INSPIRE Fellowship (Offer letter No: DST/INSPIRE Fellowship/[IF230137]), GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, MINISTRY OF SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY, Department of Science and Technology, Technology Bhawan, New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi – 110016) to conduct the research work under the guidance of Prof. Dr. S. Balamurugan, Department of Nanotechnology, Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education. The XRD instrumentation facility established at the Department of Nanotechnology by the DST-FIST (Ref. No: SR/FST/ET-I/2017/87) is thankfully acknowledged for the use of present work.

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