Thermodynamic study of nanometals for different shapes and sizes

Thermodynamic analytic model has been discussed to study the size as well as shape effect on thermodynamic parameters of nanometals. Thermodynamic properties like melting temperature, cohesive energy, vacancy formation energy and Debye temperature of Al, Ag, Au, In and Sn nano metals for spherical and non spherical nanoparticles (i.e. tetrahedral, hexahedral, octahedral and disc like) with different size have been studied. Present study shows that spherical and nonspherical nanoparticles behave in different manner due to the difference in their shape factor. It has been found that these thermal properties show decreasing trend with decrement in size of the nanomaterial due to the change in surface to volume ratio. The obtained results also reveal that shape of the nanoparticle plays a vital role to affect the thermodynamic properties of small sized nanoparticles because of change in surface area with shape for fixed volume. Theoretical results obtained for melting temperature, cohesive energy, vacancy formation energy and Debye temperature have been discussed in the light of available simulated and experimental data which supports the validity of present model. (author)