Self-assembled flower-like antimony trioxide microstructures with high infrared reflectance performance

A simple hydrothermal process was adopted to self-assembly prepare high infrared reflective antimony trioxide with three-dimensional flower-like microstructures. The morphologies of antimony trioxide microstructures were characterized by X-ray diffractometry (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) respectively. It is also found that experimental parameters, such as NaOH concentration, surfactant concentration and volume ratio of ethanol–water played crucial roles in controlling the morphologies of Sb2O3 microstructures. A possible growth mechanism of flower-like Sb2O3 microstructure was proposed based on the experimental data. UV–vis–NIR spectra verified that the near infrared reflectivity of the obtained flower-like microstructures could averagely achieve as 92% with maximum reflectivity of 98%, obviously higher than that of other different morphologies of antimony trioxide microstructures. It is expected that the flower-like Sb2O3 nanostructures have some applications in optical materials and heat insulation coatings.