Hydrothermal synthesis and characterization of NiS flower-like architectures

Under the influence of thiocyanate anions (SCN-) and cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB), NiS flower-like architectures were successfully synthesized by a one-step hydrothermal method. The synthesized flower-like architectures, with a multilayered and highly ordered texture, have diameters of several micrometers. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) shows that the NiS flower-like architectures are rhombohedral crystalline. On the basis of condition-dependent experiments, the diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) model and cage effect were used to explain the growth process of rhombohedral crystalline NiS flower-like architectures. Magnetic measurements showed that the coercivity (H-c) of the as-obtained NiS flower-like architectures was 102.14 Oe. (c) 2012 Chinese Society of Particuology and Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.