How to Prepare Exposed Facet Fiber-Like Hierarchical Arrays: A Facile Scalable Aqueous Route to Thermodynamically Stable Biphasic TiO2 (A)/TiO2 (R) Exposed Multi-Facets

Abstract

Fundamental importance and practical applications engineered well-defined exposed crystal facets have attracted intensive research interests. Herein, for the first time, a versatile free-corrosive capping agent procedure was explored to synthesize hierarchical fiber-like constructed of 2D mixed thermally stable TiO2(A)/TiO2(R) assemblies possess various well-defined sheet-shaped structures exposed with multi-facets. Co-axial electrospinning followed with direct sintering in different temperatures of 400 ºC, 700 ºC and 900 ºC) underconditions of mediums of acidic, natural and basic was applied as an outstanding strategy for synthesis of the well-integrated porous TiO2 hierarchical nanostructure arrays with the different tailored/controlled-phase frameworks. Systematic study exhibited that the shell-constructed TiO2 architecture in the co-axial electrospinning is strongly engineering by regulating pH of core material and the subsequent annealing temperature, where, in basic pH a well-deigned nanocrystal multi-facet TiO2(A)/TiO2(R) fiber-like assembly is prepared. The results are confirmed by FT-IR, XRD, FE-SEM as well as HR-TEM analysis. Our study is envisaged to extend the possibility of controlled single crystal growth to a range of functional ceramics and semiconductors toward advanced applications.