Factors influencing formation of highly dispersed BaTiO3 nanospheres with uniform sizes in static hydrothermal synthesis

Highly dispersed BaTiO3 nanospheres with uniform sizes have important applications in micro/nanoscale functional devices. To achieve well-dispersed spherical BaTiO3 nanocrystals, we carried out as reported in this paper the systematic investigation on the factors that influence the formation of BaTiO3 nanospheres by the static hydrothermal process, including the NaOH concentrations [NaOH], molar Ba/Ti ratios (R Ba/Ti), hydrothermal temperatures, and durations, with an emphasis on understanding the related mechanisms. Barium nitrate and TiO2 sols derived from tetrabutyl titanate were used as the starting materials. The as-synthesized BaTiO3 samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, thermogravimetry, differential thermal analysis, and FT-IR spectra. The highly dispersed BaTiO3 nanospheres (76 ± 13 nm) were achieved under the optimum hydrothermal conditions at 200 °C for 10 h: [NaOH] = 2.0 mol L−1 and R Ba/Ti = 1.5. Higher NaOH concentrations, higher Ba/Ti ratios, higher hydrothermal temperatures, and longer hydrothermal durations are favorable in forming BaTiO3 nanospheres with larger fractions of tetragonal phase and higher yields; but too long hydrothermal durations resulted in abnormal growth and reduced the uniformity in particle sizes. The possible formation mechanisms for BaTiO3 nanocrystals under the static hydrothermal conditions were investigated.