Hydrothermal Synthesis of BaTiO 3 Nanopowders Using TiO 2 Nanoparticles

Anatase TiO2 nanoparticles, obtained by hydrolyzing titanium isopropoxide in distilled water, were used to synthesize BaTiO3 (BT) nanopowder by the hydrothermal method. When titanium isopropoxide was used, BT nanopowder with a low tetragonality of 1.0070 was formed because of the presence of OH- ions in the oxygen sites and Ba vacancies. However, by changing the titanium source from titanium isopropoxide to TiO2 nanoparticles, a homogeneous BT nanopowder with similar particle size and a high tetragonality of 1.0081 was synthesized. The size of the BT nanopowder particles was decreased by reducing the synthesis time. In particular, the BT nanopowder that was synthesized at 220 degrees C for 16h with a Ba/Ti molar ratio of 4.0 exhibited a high tetragonality of 1.0083 and a small particle size of 126.0nm.