A Novel Seed-Assisted Route for Fabricating Potassium Titanoniobate Photocatalytic Nanomaterials

A novel, facile and mild preparation route was proposed to synthesize well-crystallined potassium titanoniobate (KTiNbO5) powders with pure phase and mono-dispersed particle morphology. The preparation process mainly included a hydrothermal reaction under temperature of 200 degrees C, then following with a short time calcining at 500 degrees C. The utility of crystal seed during the hydrothermal process was essential and pivotal. Most importantly, only the crystal seed was prepared through a particular sol-gel process, was the desired KTiNbO5 particles successfully achieved. The unique effect of such crystal seed was discussed in detail. We demonstrated that particle quantity and morphology of the crystal seed was a key point for the successful preparation. The KTiNbO5 particles synthesized in this work exhibited thin and rectangular particle shape with the average size around one micron. Moreover, the photocatalytic behavior of such KTiNbO5 powders was investigated. It was proved that such KTiNbO5 powders had potential applications as photocatalytic materials.