Synthesis and application of bismuth alkoxide and bismuth titanate

Abstract

Recently, bismuth containing material was used in a number of applications such as sensor, photocatalyst, and electronics. For instance, bismuth titanate sillenite phase performed a remarkable potential in visible light photocatalyst. Due to its signified importance in nanotechnolgy, it is necessary to explore a potential precursor capagle to control its reactivity. Therefore, in this research, high purity, non-toxic and facile storage bismuth alkoxide precursor was successfully synthesized; and was further used to synthesize perovskite bismuth titanate. It was found that this precursor can be controlled its reactivity for obtaining the bismuth titanate product via sol-gel process. Moreover, by adjusting the synthesis condition, the three-dimension flower-like structure of the bismuth alkoxide precursor was obtained via controlling reaction time, reaction temperature, and chemical composition. The bismuth alkoxide precursor was alos transformed to bismuth oxide by calcinations at 300 C while maintaining the three-dimension flower-like structure. Sillenite bismuth titanate was tested the photocatalytic activity by comparing to TS-1 zeolite catalyst for waste water treatment using reactive black 5 dye as a model. Moreover, the morphology of the sillenite bismuth titanate precursor was investigated by varying reaction time, and it was found that at 30 min, a leaf and plate-like structure was observed. At 1 h reaction time, the flower-like structure was formed and the flower-like formation was complete within 2h. The bismuth titanate phase is obtained by calcinations of the precursor at 600 C for 30 min.