A facile and novel route to high surface area ceria-based nanopowders by salt-assisted solution combustion synthesis

A novel salt-assisted combustion process to synthesize high surface area ceria-based nanopowders has been developed. The effects of fuel-to-oxidant ratios, type and amount of added salt on the characteristics of the resultants were investigated by powder X-ray diffractometry (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and BET surface area analysis. The facile addition of soluble inert salt in the redox mixture solution for combustion synthesis was found to result in the formation of well-dispersed nanoparticles and a drastic increase of specific surface area from 14.10 to 156.74 m2/g. Finally, a mechanism scheme was proposed to illustrate the possible formation processes of highly dispersed nanoparticles.