Morphological evolution of Nb₂O₅ in a solvothermal reaction: From Nb₂O₅ grains to Nb₂O₅ nanorods and hexagonal Nb₂O₅ nanoplatelets

Abstract

Novel Nb₂O₅ nanorods and polygonal Nb₂O₅ platelets were generated by a simple solvothermal technique. The geometry evolution of the resultant Nb₂O₅ from amorphous nanoparticles to crystallized particles, from polygonal platelets to well-elongated nanorods was been studied in detail. The processing parameters, including the reaction temperature, reaction time, concentration of the precursors, and pH value of the solution, which affect the shape and size of the nanorods, were investigated. The Nb₂O₅ nanorods with different aspect ratios were examined by XRD, SEM and TEM. The experimental results show that Nb₂O₅ nanorod is the orthorhombic structure and well-crystallized. The growth of the nanorods follows their [001] direction. The successful generation of high quality Nb₂O₅ nanorods is not only important for transition metal oxide research, but also potentially important for further formation of new Nb-based 1-D nanostructures, such as NbS₂ and NbN.

Keywords

solvothermal / morphological evolution / Nb₂O₅ nanomateraials

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