Novel approach for sol–gel synthesis of nanosize aluminium titanate

Abstract

A novel sol–gel approach has been used to synthesise nanosized aluminium titanate, wherein titanium dioxide and for the first time aluminium metal powder have been used as starting materials for the preparation of respective sols, which on mixing resulted in the formation of a gel. Calcinations of washed and dried gel at temperatures ≧800°C show the formation of β-aluminium titanate. Powder X-ray diffraction data indicate that the aluminium titanate phase starts forming at 800°C itself, an observation also supported by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy studies. The content and crystalline nature of aluminium titanate increase with the increase in calcination temperature. The crystallite size is evaluated to be between 17 and 26 nm. The ‘d’ value estimated from the micrograph recorded for the sample calcined at 1000°C by high resolution TEM agrees well with the ‘d’ value for the 022 plane of β-aluminium titanate.