Investigation on morphology measurement and evaluation of TiO_2 nanoparticles synthesized by SANSS

摘要

The article investigates the morphology of TiO_2 nanoparticles synthesized by a physical fabrication process, namely the submerged arc spray nanoparticle synthesis system (SANSS). An in-process sample preparation and an on-line nanoparticle sizing system using photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS) were developed to analyze the geometric (shape and size) properties of the T1O2 nanoparticles. To evaluate the measurement results, the prepared particles were measured to quantify the nanoparticle geometric characteristics by employing a group of three different microscopes, including a transmission electron microscope (TEM), a scanning electron microscope and an atomic force microscope. More than 100 particle measurement for each experiment was performed to ensure data accuracy within 95 percent confidence level. The experimental results revealed that the averaged sphericity of the prepared nanoparticles was 5 percent of the particle size. It was found that the particle sphericity was deteriorated from 3.8 percent to 5.6 percent when the averaged particle diameter was decreased from 600 nm to 50 nm.