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H. Lakhotiya, R. Singh, J. Bahadur, D. Sen, A. Das, S. Mazumder, B. Paul, P. Sastry, H. Lemmel:
"Micro-structural investigations of spray hydrolyzed TiO_2";
Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 584 (2014), 101 - 107.

Hydrolysis across tiny spray droplet allows a facile one step synthesis of interesting sub-micrometric
structures owing to the large available surface area unlike bulk hydrolysis. In the present work, it has
been demonstrated that titania precursor concentration plays a significant role in effecting morphological
transformation during spray hydrolysis. While hollow microspheres are formed primarily at low precur-
sor concentration, fractal like grains, having two levels of hierarchy, result at high precursor concentra-
tion. Mesoscopic structure of these spray hydrolyzed grains has been investigated by ultra small-angle
neutron scattering, small-angle X-ray scattering and scanning electron microscopy. Thermal evolution
of initial amorphous phase of titania into crystalline rutile phase, through intermediate anatase and
brookite phases, is followed by high temperature X-ray diffraction. A plausible mechanism has been elu-
cidated for the observed morphological transition with variation of precursor concentration.

SANS SAXS Spray hydrolysis Titania

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2013.08.195