Template-Free Hydrothermal Synthesis of CeO₂ Nano-octahedrons and Nanorods: Investigation of the Morphology Evolution

Uniform single-crystalline CeO 2 nano-octahedrons and nanorods were synthesized by a facile hydrothermal synthesis process only using Ce(NO 3 ) 3 ·6H 2 O as cerium resource and Na 3 PO 4 ·6H 2 O as mineralizer, into which no surfactant or template was introduced. By tuning the hydrothermal treatment time, the morphology evolution between the nano-octahedron and nanorod was observed. Furthermore, the synthesizing mechanism and the morphological evolution of different shapes were investigated. Unlike traditional hydrothermal synthesis of CeO 2 nanostructures using strong base as precipitant, Na 3 PO 4 does not leave any impurity in the hydrothermal reaction system and makes the process very simple to obtain and separate the octahedral and rodlike morphology.