Glycine-Assisted Formation of Nanorods from Rare Earth Oxides

In this paper, a method was proposed for the synthesis of one-dimensional nanoparticles based on new rare earth (RE) compounds, RE hydroxyglycinates. One-dimensional nanoparticles were obtained by the interaction of RE oxides (Y₂O₃, Eu₂O₃, Ho₂O₃, Er₂O₃, Gd₂O₃, Sm₂O₃) with glycine solutions at the molar ratio NH₂CH₂COOH : RE₂O₃ = 35 : 1 at 60°C. The thickness of nanoparticles was 50–150 nm and the length was 1–5 μm. FT-IR and Raman spectroscopy, thermal analysis and CHN elemental analysis data allowed to establish that the composition of the hydroxyglycinate nanorods is described by the formula Ln(NH₂CH₂COO)_1.2(OH)_1.4(CO₃)_0.2·1.2H₂O. Based on atomic force microscopy data, the Young’s modulus of one-dimensional europium hydroxyglycinate nanoparticles was determined (~35 GPa) and the lower limit of the shear modulus was estimated ( \( \gg \) 2.0 GPa).