Fast Hydrothermal Synthesis Of Titanate Nanotubes In The Presence Of Triethanolamine

摘要

The titanate nanotubes were prepared using a simple, low cost and template-free hydrothermal method in an autoclave from TiO_2 powder as a starting material. The morphology and crystallinity of the nanotubes are characterized in detail with XRD, BET, UV-vis, SEM and TEM respectively. The nanotubes have an average outer diameter of around 11 nm and the inner diameter around 5 nm with several hundred nanometers in length. Furthermore, the addition of triethanolamine (TEA) will reduce the formation time of the titanate nanotubes from 24h to 6h. These tubular materials can be very useful in the fields of photocatalysts, photoelectronics and solar cell/ batteries applications.