A facile route for synthesis of mesoporous barium titanate crystallites

Well crystallized BaTiO3 with meso-structure inside the crystallites was directly synthesized from the solution via a simple sol-precipitation process with cetyltrimethylammonium chloride (C16TMAC) as the cationic surfactant. Mesoporous structure (pore size distribution peaking at 2.2 nm) with single crystalline wall was obtained after removal of the template by calcination. The pores were locally ordered for some regions but wormhole-like on the whole view. The resulting materials were characterized with wide-angle and low-angle X-ray diffraction, SEM, TEM and low temperature nitrogen adsorption–desorption isotherms. A specific surface BET area of ∼50 m2/g was obtained. Formation mechanisms of the single-crystalline mesoporous structure are discussed. The present method avoids onerous heat treatment procedure for crystallization and provides an efficient way to synthesize mesoporous functional multi-metallic oxides with single-crystalline wall.