Preparation of Ni/MgO catalysts for carbon nanofibres by a self-propagating low temperature combustion process

Ni/MgO catalysts were prepared using nitrate salt and citric acid in various ratios by the sol-gel selfpropagating, low temperature combustion process. The products were characterized by the scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry. The results show that Ni/MgO catalyst precursors of various particle sizes can be obtained by controlling the amount of citric acid. The catalytic activity of Ni/MgO decreases as the calcination temperature increases, owing to the difficulty of the NiO reduction. The mechanism of formation of Ni/MgO catalysts has also been proposed. Self-propagation combustion has great advantage of occurring at low temperatures, and the Ni/MgO is a suitable catalyst for low cost preparation of carbon nanofibres.