Hydrothermal synthesis of β-bismuth oxide nanowires from particles

Abstract

β-Bi₂O₃ nanowires have been synthesized via a facile hydrothermal approach using commercial Bi₂O₃ and K₂SO₄ as raw materials in aqueous solution. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and HRTEM results showed us that the structure of the as-synthesized nanowires was in agreement with the (110) planes of β-Bi₂O₃ particles. The vibration of the [BiO₆] configuration appeared in the infra-red (IR) spectra of the nanowires. TEM results revealed that the β-Bi₂O₃ nanowires diameter ranged from 30 to 100 nm and the length was up to tens of micrometres. The IR and atomic adsorption spectrophotometer (AAS) results indicated that the crystal growth of β-Bi₂O₃ was carried out through Bi(SO₄)_n³⁻²ⁿ complexes. The ion-exchange results further confirmed that the SO₄²⁻ ions were adsorbed on the surface of β-Bi₂O₃ nanowires. The shape-controlled mechanism of the nanowires was proposed as well.