Triethanolamine – solution for rapid hydrothermal synthesis of titanate nanotubes

Titanate nanotubes were prepared by a rapid hydrothermal method in the presence of triethanolamine (TEA) using TiO2 nanoparticles as a precursor. The addition of TEA significantly reduced the formation time of the titanate nanotubes from 24 to 6 h. The crystalline structure of the titanate nanotubes...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: An'amt, M.N., Huang, N.M., Radiman, S., H.N., Lim, Muhamad, M.R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2014
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/6826/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/6826/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/6826/1/18%2520M.N.%2520An%25D4%25C7%25D6amt.pdf
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Summary:Titanate nanotubes were prepared by a rapid hydrothermal method in the presence of triethanolamine (TEA) using TiO2 nanoparticles as a precursor. The addition of TEA significantly reduced the formation time of the titanate nanotubes from 24 to 6 h. The crystalline structure of the titanate nanotubes was revealed to be H2Ti2O5 through the X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurement. The morphology of the titanate nanotubes was confirmed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) while the surface area was characterized using Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analysis. The titanate nanotubes produced were several hundred nanometers in length and had an average outer diameter of ~ 11.5 nm, inner diameter of ~5.0 nm, interlayer spacing of 0.93 nm and surface area of >250 m2/g. The photocatalytic activity of the titanate nanotubes was studied using methylene blue as a model dye; the titanate nanotubes showed better photocatalytic performance as compared to TiO2 nanoparticles.