Hydrothermal processing of nanocrystalline anatase films from tetraethylammonium hydroxide peptized titania sols

abstract

Nanocrystalline anatase films were obtained by hydrothermally treating dip-coated TiO2 gel films onto silicon substrates from tetraethylammonium hydroxide (TENOR) peptized titania aqueous sols diluted with different solvents (isoproponol, acetone and propanediol) at 240degreesC for 2 h. SEM, AFM and XRD analysis were used to characterize the microstructure and phase evolution of the films. The highest degree of homogeneity and good wettability towards the substrate could only be obtained with mixed solvents of acetone and isopropanol, yielding denser structure with homogeneously distributed fine grains among all the three solvents. A uniform distribution of fine grains of around 50 nm was obtained after hydrothermal treatment, while the film calcined at 500degreesC/2 h displayed larger grains of around 80 nm and were not so uniformly developed. All these results suggest that (a) TENOR peptized titania sol is a promising novel stock precursor for synthesizing TiO2 films; (b) hydrothermal technique is quite efficient in preparing titania nanocrystalline films compared with calcination method. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

keywords

THIN-FILMS; MICROSPHERES; POWDERS

subject category

Materials Science

authors

Yang, J; Mei, S; Ferreira, JMF

our authors

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