The preparation and characterization of nanostructured materials and catalysts is the focus of intense study in recent years. The micro emulsion technique is one of the chemical methods known for isolation of nano-sized materials and some simple compounds such as AgCl and LiF have been prepared using this technique. However, very few attempts have been made to isolate nano-sized coordination compounds, which are known to be good catalysts.

In the present paper, nano-sized complexes of Cu(II) and Ni(II) with Leucine were prepared by the reaction of metal chloride and the ligand solution in water in oil micro-emulsion medium. N-Heptane was used as oil and sodium salt of dioctyl sulfo succinate (AOT) was used as surfactant to stabilize the emulsion. The complexes were characterized by elemental analysis and spectral studies. The crystallite sizes were determined by XRD studies using single line approximation through Scherrer equation. The X- ray diffraction studies revealed that the crystallite size of the complexes prepared by micro-emulsion technique was smaller than that of the material prepared by conventional method. The difference in particle size was also observed in differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) studies, where in, the reaction peaks were observed at lower temperatures for the complexes prepared by the micro-emulsion technique. The increased surface to volume ratio is expected to give better catalytic behavior.