Morphology engineering of nanostructured TiO2 particles

Abstract

Nanostructured TiO₂ particles with various morphologies play an important role in photoelectricity and photocatalysis. In this work, we demonstrate how to tune the morphologies of TiO₂ particles. TiO₂ particles with well defined morphologies, for example, spherical flower, thatch, cauliflower, nanocube and octahedral were synthesized by a solvothermal route. This was realized by the effective control of the alcoholysis rate of TiF₄ and the prevention of the aggregation through optimizing the pressure, composition and pH value of the reaction solution. This work provides not only a strategy for controlling the morphology of TiO₂ particles, but also a universal method that can be applied to the preparation of other nanomaterials.