Effects of solvent, synthesis temperature and silicon on size and thermal stability of titanium (iv) oxide, iron (iii) oxide and zinc (ii) oxide synthesized via solvothermal process

Abstract

The nanostructured material titanium (IV) oxide, iron (III) oxide and zinc (II) oxide were synthesized via solvothermal reaction in organic media (1,4 butanediol and toluene) at various reaction temperatures for 2 hours under autogenous pressure. For varying the reaction temperatures, the crystallite size increases with an increases of the reaction temperature in both solvents. The synthesis in different solvents does not affected the crystal growth of titanium (IV) oxide and iron (III) oxide which is different from zinc (II) oxide. The effects of silicon on the crystallite size and thermal stability of metal oxide were studied. With the same amount of silicon adding, the reduction of crystal size of the small crystallite size was lower than the large crystal. In this work thermal stability was defined as d900/d0 where d900 is the crystallite size of product after calcined at 900°c and d0 is the as-synthesized crystallite size. The addition of silicon in the starting material improves the thermal stability of metal oxide especially titanium (IV) oxide and zinc (II) oxide. The thermal stability of the small as-prepared crystallite size was better than the large crystal compared with the same amount of silicon added.