Impact of Ambient Pressure on Titania Nanoparticle Formation During Spray-Flame Synthesis

Nanocrystalline titania was synthesized via liquid-fed spray-flame synthesis in a hermetically closed system at various pressures. Titanium tetraisopropoxide dissolved in isopropanol was used as precursor. The size, crystal structure, degree of agglomeration, morphology and the band gap of the as-prepared particles were investigated ex situ by nitrogen adsorption, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and UV-VIS absorption spectroscopy. In comparison to synthesis at atmospheric pressure it was found that decreasing pressure has a significant influence on the particle size distribution leading to smaller particles with reduced geometric standard deviation while particle morphology and crystal structure are not affected. Computational fluid dynamics simulations support the experimental findings also indicating a significant decrease in particle size at reduced pressure. Although it is well known that decreasing pressure leads to smaller particle sizes, it is (to our knowledge) the first time that this relation was investigated for spray-flame synthesis.