Preparation of bismuth oxide nanoparticles using supercritical water hydrothermal synthesis

No Persian Abstract

Bismuth oxide is an important metal oxide semiconductor and has attracted much attention due to their extensive applications in solid oxide fuel cell, gas sensor photocatalysis under UV and visible light irradiation. Bi2O3 nanostructures have been prepared by various techniques like the microemulsion method, metal–organic chemical vapour deposition, chemical method, hydrothermal synthesis and the oxidative metal vapour transport deposition technique. In this work, bismuth oxide nanoparticles were synthesized using supercritical water hydrothermal synthesis at different temperetures (400, 450, 500 °C), pH’s (8.0, 9.0, 10.0) and precursor concentrations (0.1, 0.2, 0.3 M). The crystalline phase and purity of the synthesized Bi2O3 nanoparticles were characterized by XRD, while the morphology of the obtained particles was determined by TEM images. Strong and sharp XRD peaks pointed to highly crystalline nature of the prepared β-Bi2O3. TEM analysis also showed spherical agglomerated particles. All these reasonable characteristics were achieved without using any additive and/or thermal treatments.