Facile synthesis and characterization of monodispersed elliptical TiO_2 nanoparticles

A simple and rapid sol-gel-hydrothermal process has been developed to synthesize monodispersed TiO_2 nanoparticles by employing titanium tetrabutoxide as the raw material and triethanolamine as the shape director.The effects of reactive parameters including ratio of titanium tetrabutoxide to triethanolamine,temperature of gel formation and temperature of hydrothermal treatment on the morphology and size of TiO_2 nanoparticles were investigated.The structure and morphology of the as-prepared TiO_2 nanoparticles were characterized by XRD and TEM,respectively.The results indicated that the optimized experimental conditions for the preparation of monodispersed TiO_2 nanoparticles are the ratio of tetrabutoxide to triethanolamine 2∶1,temperature of gel formation 100℃,and temperature of hydrothermal treatment around 140℃.