The effect of synthesis conditions on the formation of titanate nanotubes

The TiO ₂ sol was prepared hydrothermally in an autoclave from aqueous TiOCl ₂ solutions as a starting precursor. Hollow fibers were obtained when the sol-gel-derived TiO ₂ sol was treated chemically with a NaOH solution and subsequently heated in the autoclave under various conditions. A systematic analysis of the influence of different NaOH concentrations on the formation of nanotubes was carried out. The details of the nanotubular structure were investigated by using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brauner-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area, and photoluminescence (PL) measurements. From the TEM images, the outer and the inner diameters of the tubes were measured to be about 8 and 4 nm, respectively, the lengths were measured to be several hundreds of nanometers.