Carlton M. Truesdale1, Damon C. Osterhout1, Andrey Filippov2, Calvin T. Coffey1, and Martin A. Sala1. (1) Corning Inc., SP-PR-01-3, Corning, NY 14831, (2) Sullivan Park research Center, Corning Inc., SP-PR-01-3, Corning, NY 14831
Titanium dioxide (titania) has a high refractive index and is useful as a pigment, electronic material and catalyst support. It is also used as a photosensitiser for photo-voltaic cells, and as an electrode coating in photoelectro-lysis cells for boosting electrolytic dissociation of water into hydrogen and oxygen. The most important of a num-ber of crystalline polymorphs of titania are anatase and rutile, of which anatase is more efficient and preferable for the mentioned applications. This underscores the im-portance of controlling the crystalline form of produced titania. This paper is devoted to developing a gas phase method for generating titania nanoparticles by oxidation of TiCl4 vapor in a hot wall reactor under controlled con-ditions. An aerosol of titania nanoparticles was generated in a tubular hot-wall reactor with inductively heated Pt-Rh walls. The highest temperature inside the reactor was found to be at the inner wall close to the exit from the heated zone and was measured using an infrared pyrometer. The effect of reaction conditions on the particle size and the anantase content were investigated. It was found that crystallographically pure anatase particles can be generated in a rather wide range of reaction temperatures.