Temperature Dependence of Nickel Stabilization in Inorganic Oxide Matrices

Abstract

Scanning electron microscopy, X‐ray diffractometry, X‐ray absorption spectroscopy, and other means are used to investigate the effect of thermal treatment temperature, 105–1100 °C, on the immobilization of nickel (Ni) by the inorganic oxides of latosol. Ni is more firmly immobilized by the latosol with increasing temperature. Spectral analyses indicate that a shoulder toward the edge‐jump appears in the spectra of X‐ray absorption near‐edge structure for the samples heated at 900 and 1100 °C. Moreover, the intensity of the main peak at the edge increases with higher temperature; this information indicates the distortion of the divalent nickel [Ni(II)] environment in the samples heated at 900 and 1100 °C. Nevertheless, the distortion is absent from the samples heated at 105 and 500 °C. The fact of the distortion of the Ni(II) environment suggests the occurrence of a chemical reaction between the Ni compound and the inorganic matrices of the latosol soil during the heating process at 900 and 1100 °C. In addition, the extended X‐ray absorption fine structure results correspond well to the X‐ray absorption near‐edge structure results; the former are supportive of the occurrence of a distorted Ni(II) environment in the samples heated at 900 and 1100 °C. The wet‐chemistry results show that the samples heated at 900–1100 °C leach less Ni than the 105–500 °C samples do. The change of the Ni environment is related to the observation that less Ni is leached from the samples heated at 900–1100 °C. Furthermore, the pore closing phenomenon is observed only in the 1100 °C sample; this phenomenon corresponds with the fact that the 1100 °C sample leaches less Ni than the 900 °C sample does.