Synthesis and characterization of silver(II) oxide

Silver(II) oxide (AgO), an active material for batteries, wits synthesized by oxidation of silver(I) nitrate in alkaline medium and was characterized using various physico-chemical techniques for trace metal impurities, struc ture and thermal stabilities and various physical parameters. The results o f analytical analyses involving x-ray fluorescence, atomic absorption and e mission spectrometries reveal that the synthesized AgO has the purity >98% and contain Na, Fe, Ca, Cu, Mg Zn, Si Al, B etc. as traces. The structural and thermal investigations show that AgO has monoclinic structure and is st able upto 130 degreesC, beyond that AgO decomposes into two stages; the fir st stage corresponds to the conversion of AgO to Ag2O while the second stag e is the indicative of Ag2O to Ag conversion The determined values of densi ties lie in the order of bulk density < tap density < true density, having surface area 0.307 m(2)/g average particle size 20.73 micron pore volume 0. 235 cm(3)/g and porosity 57%.