Synthesis and Characterization of Zirconia Nanocrystallites by Cationic Surfactant and Anionic Surfactant

1 INTRODUCTION Zirconia is a kind of metallic oxide with high mel- ting point. It is highly corrosion-resistant for acid fu- sant and neutral fusant, thus it can be used as refrac- tory material, and it can also be utilized as acid acy- loxy bi-functional catalystic material owing to hav- ing both acid and alkali surface centers[1]. Moreover, zirconia has superior ion-exchange capacity as well as chemical and mechanical stability, therefore, it can also be applied as a catalyst carrier. …

Synthesis and Characterization of Zirconia Nanocrystallites by Cationic Surfactant and Anionic Surfactant

Study on nanomaterials has attracted great interests in recent years. In this article,zirconia nanocrystallites of different structures have been successfully synthesized via hydrothermal methods with cationic surfactant (CTAB) and anionic surfactant (SDS), respectively. Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC-TG), X-ray Diffractometer (XRD), Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), Ultraviolet-Visible (UV-vis) and N2 adsorption-desorption analyses are used for their structure characteristics. The results show that the cationic surfactant has a distinctive direction effect on the formation of zirconia nanocrystallites, while the anionic surfactant has a self-assembly synergistic effect on them. The sample synthesized with the cationic surfactant presents good dispersion with the main phase of tetragonal zirconia, and the average nanocryst al size is around 15nm after calcination at 500 ℃. While the sample synthesized with the anionic surfactant exhibits a worm-like mesoporous structure with pure tetragonal phase after calcination at 500 ℃ and with good thermal stability.