Effect On Used Of Different HCl Molarities to the Characteristic of Nanotitania Powder Produced Via the Hydrothermal Method

A hydrothermal process was developed using alternative cheaper rutile mineral as precursor for the synthesis of nanotitania powder. The dissolution stage is an important part of the process as this will lead to the nucleation of the titanium ions and hence to the properties of the nanotitania powder. The study looks into the effect on different HCl molarities (0.5 – 4 M HCl) on the characteristic properties of rutile titanium dioxide produced by the hydrothermal method. At lower HCl molarities (0.5 and 1.0 M), the Titania consist of both anatase and rutile phases, while at higher molarities (2.0 – 4.0 M), only a single rutile phase is present. It was discovered that the there is an inverse relationship between HCl's molarity and titania's crystallite size, where the most dilute acid at 0.5 M HCl produces the largest crystallite size of 11.95 nm, while diluting with 3 M HCl produces a crystallite size of 6.7 nm. The surface morphology observed by SEM of the rutile products produced at different acid molarities seems to be of similar highly disarrayed and nonuniform structures. From the results it can be concluded that dissolution using 2 M HCl produced the best nanotitania properties.