Investigation of typical properties of nanocrystalline iron powders prepared by ball milling techniques

Metallic powder has applications in many fields. In applications for preservation and anti-oxidation, iron powder has been used as an air oxygen reducer which is capable of decreasing microclimatic oxygen concentrations in a hermetic mini-environment. In this role, if we increase the specific surface area by reducing the particle size of the iron powder, the rate and performance of oxygen reduction will be improved significantly. In addition, the porosity of iron powder also contributes considerably. The iron powder can be fabricated using many methods: chemical deposition, powder metallurgy and mechanical milling. The technique of milling has certain advantages, especially for the formation of technical iron powder. The experimental equipment used was a Fritsch P-6 planetary ball mill. The iron powder was prepared with different milling times, from 1 up to 30 h in acetone as a protective environment. The powder products obtained were analyzed using field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), energy dispersive x-ray (EDX), x-ray diffraction (XRD), dynamic laser scattering (DLS), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) techniques and also magnetic characterization by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The results show a correlation between the milling time and the crystallite and particle size, specific surface area, magnetic properties and nanoscale porosity of the iron powder. The iron powders obtained were a kind of mesoporous materials. The properties of the iron powder were examined with respect to their oxygen reducing kinetics.