Nucleation Controlled Growth of Cadmium Oxalate Crystals in Agar Gel and Their Characterization

Abstract

Perfect single crystals of cadmium oxalate have been grown using the slow and controlled reaction between cadmium acetate and oxalic acid in agar gel media at ambient temperature, resulting in the formation of insoluble product Cd(COO)2. Different methods for growing crystals were adopted. The optimum conditions were employed in each method by varying the concentration of gel and reactants, gel setting time, and so forth. Prismatic, transparent single crystal about 20 times larger than the crystals obtained in various other methods at the interstitial by adding impurities in the gel was obtained. The grown crystals was characterized with the help of FT-IR studies and triclinic system of crystals were supported with lattice parameters a = 8.803 A0, b = 22.352 A0, c = 5.706 A0, α = 95.74 A0, β = 90.92 A0, γ = 117.01 A0, and V = 994.69 A03, calculated from X-ray diffractogram.