Surfactant Assisted Hydrothermal Synthesis of Nano-Microsphere Titania

Abstract

Using titanium trichloride (TiCl 3 ) as the precursor, cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB), polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as the surfactants, sodium chloride (NaCl) as the mineralizer, titanium oxides (TiO 2 ) nanomicrospheres were synthesized at 170 °C for 24 h via hydrothermal method. Use x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to characterize the crystal structure and morphology of the microspheres. The results show that pure rutile phase TiO 2 microspheres can be prepared with the assist of surfactant by hydrothermal treatment. The spheres were composed of radial aligned nanorods. The diameters of the rods were about 40 nm and the lengths were about 500 nm. The diameters of the TiO 2 microspheres prepared using CTAB, PVP, SDS as the surfactant were among 1μm~2μm, 5μm~10μm, and 2μm~5μm, respectively.