COATING FINE NICKEL PARTICLES WITH Al2O3 UTILISING AN ATOMIC LAYER DEPOSITION-FLUIDISED BED REACTOR (ALD-FBR)

An atomic layer deposition-fluidised bed reactor (ALD-FBR) method was developed to deposit ultrathin and conformal coatings on fine particles. Experiments of Al2O3 deposition on 150-micron-diameter nickel particles were conducted. The fluidised bed was constructed to operate under vacuum, and the fluidising gas used was nitrogen. Trimethylaluminium and water were used as dosing reagents. The reactions were conducted at 450 K. Successful deposition of alumina films, with thickness controllable at the nanometre level, was seen based on TEM imaging, ICPES, XPS, particle-size distributions, and wavelength-dispersive spectrometry imaging. 20 refs.