Study on Heating Profile of Liquid-mixing-synthesized ZnTiO3

Abstract

The synthesis of monophasic ZnTiO3 powder has been reported as one of the challenges in material chemistry because under normal condition and as prepared by various synthesis methods, ZnTiO3 phase readily decomposes to Zn2TiO4 and TiO2 rutile phases. This is due to the temperature range of ZnTiO3 phase formation was very narrow, i.e. 600 - 800 °C; above that temperature, the decomposition of ZnTiO3 phase took place. This paper is intended to introduce a facile route, named liquid mixing method, to prepare ZnTiO3 powder from Zn and Ti metal powders as the raw materials and HCl as the solvent. Via this route, ZnTiO3 phase was formed at a temperature as low as 550 °C with particle size distributed homogeneously. The heating profile of ZnTiO3 phase from 440 to 900 °C was studied based on TG/DTA, XRD and FTIR data. However, when a 'normal' stoichiometric ratio of Zn: Ti = 1: 1 was applied, TiO2 rutile phase becomes dominant, while ZnTiO3 phase is only a secondary phase. This affects to the crystallinity of the ZnTiO3 phase. An effort to overcome the dominance of TiO2 phase was also demonstrated in this paper.