Titanium Dioxide Nanomaterials: Synthesis, Properties, Modifications, and Applications

[Yang, Hua Gui; Sun, Cheng Hua; Qiao, Shi Zhang; Liu, Gang; Smith, Sean Campbell; Lu, Gao Qing] Univ Queensland, ARC Ctr Excellence Funct Nanomat, Sch Engn, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia. [Yang, Hua Gui; Sun, Cheng Hua; Qiao, Shi Zhang; Liu, Gang; Smith, Sean Campbell; Lu, Gao Qing] Univ Queensland, Australian Inst Bioengn & Nanotechnol, Ctr Computat Mol Sci, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia. [Zou, Jin] Univ Queensland, Ctr Microscopy & Microanal, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia. [Zou, Jin] Univ Queensland, Sch Engn, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia. [Liu, Gang; Cheng, Hui Ming] Chinese Acad Sci, Met Res Inst, Shenyang Natl Lab Mat sci, Shenyang 110016, Peoples R China.;Lu, GQ (reprint author), Univ Queensland, ARC Ctr Excellence Funct Nanomat, Sch Engn, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia;s.qiao@uq.edu.au maxlu@uq.edu.au

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Anatase TiO(2) single crystals with a large percentage of reactive facets

Colloidal nanocrystals are solution-grown, nanometre-sized, inorganic particles that are stabilized by a layer of surfactants attached to their surface. The inorganic cores possess useful properties that are controlled by their composition, size and shape, and the surfactant coating ensures that these structures are easy to fabricate and process further into more complex structures. This combination of features makes colloidal nanocrystals attractive and promising building blocks for advanced materials and devices. Chemists are achieving ever more exquisite control over the composition, size, shape, crystal structure and surface properties of nanocrystals, thus setting the stage for fully exploiting the potential of these remarkable materials.

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Colloidal nanocrystal synthesis and the organic–inorganic interface

Colloidal nanocrystals are nanometer-sized, solution-grown inorganic particles stabilized by a layer of surfactants attached to their surface. The inorganic cores exhibit useful properties controlled by composition as well as size and shape, while the surfactant coating ensures that these structures are easy to fabricate and process. It is this combination of features that makes colloidal nanocrystals attractive and promising building blocks for advanced materials and devices. But their full potential can only be exploited if we achieve exquisite control over their composition, size, shape, crystal structure and surface properties. Here we review what is known about nanocrystal growth and outline strategies for controlling it.

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Colloidal nanocrystal synthesis and the organic-inorganic interface - eScholarship

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Nanoparticle PEGylation for imaging and therapy

The surfactant-mediated shape evolution of titanium dioxide anatase nanocrystals in nonaqueous media was studied. The shape evolves from bullet and diamond structures to rods and branched rods. The modulation of surface energies of the different crystallographic faces through the use of a surface selective surfactant is the key parameter for the shape control.

Surfactant-assisted elimination of a high energy facet as a means of controlling the shapes of TiO2 nanocrystals.

The study of nanoscale materials with well-controlled size and shape can be used to learn more about critical length scales for numerous physical and chemical phenomena in solids and extended systems.1,2 Small nanocrystals (below 5-nm diameter) have been shown to exhibit fully reversible single-domain structural phase transformations with large volume changes over multiple cycles. The same transformations in extended solids are accompanied by irreversible domain formation.3-5 Here we investigate the crossover between these regimes by studying a pressure-induced structural transformation in 4-nm-diameter nanorods varying in aspect ratio from 1 to 10. We find that above a critical length the nanorods fracture at the moment of the structural transformation. This work demonstrates the use of simple, well-defined nanoscale systems to examine fundamental structural phenomena found in extended solids.

Maria F. Casula

Papers

Surfactant-assisted elimination of a high energy facet as a means of controlling the shapes of TiO2 nanocrystals.

Critical size for fracture during solid-solid phase transformations