Sulfur-Mediated Synthesis of Spherical Nickel Nanoparticles in a Chemical Vapor Reactor.

In this study, we investigated the effect of the sulfur content in the NiCl precursor on the shape of nickel nanoparticles (Ni-NPs) prepared by chemical vapor synthesis. We obtained spherical Ni-NPs when using anhydrous NiCl mixed with NiSO or NaSO with a molar ratio of 0.002 as precursors without changing any other process parameters whereas faceted Ni-NPs when using only anhydrous NiCl as a precursor.