An aqueous, alkaline route to titanate nanotubes under atmospheric pressureconditions

Abstract

A significant reduction in the temperature for alkaline synthesis of titanatenanotubes is reported. Nanotubular titanates have been synthesized fromTiO2 at100 °C in a mixture of concentrated, aqueous solutions of KOH and NaOH. After 48 h ofrefluxing, essentially complete conversion was achieved. For a given temperature, thecomposition of KOH and NaOH in the binary mixture was chosen to achieve aparticular concentration of Ti(IV), which favoured the formation of nanotubes. Themorphology, surface area and crystal structure of the titanate nanotubes produced weresimilar to those produced in a solution of pure NaOH at a higher temperature(≈140 °C).