A NOVEL PROCESS FOR THE PREPARATION OF NANOCRYSTALLINE SINGLE PHASE LITHIUM METATITANATE AT ROOM TEMPERATURE

摘要

Conventional procedure for preparing nanocrystalline lithium metatitanate involved reaction at a high temperature which often resulted in a loss of lithium, with high processing cost. These drawbacks are overcome by the present invention which relates to a novel process for preparing nanocrystalline single phase lithium metatitanate under ambient conditions, which comprises— (i) treating Li2O (99.5%) to a state of subdivision of around 150 µm; (ii) selecting substantially pure (99.5%) titanium dioxide (TiO2) having particle size of around 200 µm; (iii) blending LiO2 and TiO2 of the respective particle sizes as in (i) and (ii); (iv) milling the blend in High Energy Planetary Ball Mill (HEPBM) at room temperature for milling times varying between 0 and 50 hours at an optimum speed of 300 rpm and different ball-to- powder ratios (BPR) of 10:1, 20:1, 30:1 and 40:1, and (v) identifying the single phase formation of nanocrystalline lithium metatitanate (Li2TiO3) by means of an X-ray diffractometer with Cu K radiation of 0.15418 nm.