J. Mater. Sci. Technol. ›› 2012, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (10): 865-870.

• Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology •     Next Articles

Synthesis and Characterization of Niobium-doped TiO2 Nanotube Arrays by Anodization of Ti−20Nb Alloys

Zhengchao Xu1), Qi Li1), Shian Gao1), Jianku Shang1,2)   

  1. 1) Materials Center for Water Puri¯cation, Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China
    2) Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
  • Received:2012-09-13 Revised:2012-09-29 Online:2012-10-30 Published:2012-10-31
  • Contact: Qi Li
  • Supported by:

    the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51102246), the Knowledge Innovation Program of Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. Y0N5A111A1), and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. Y2N5711171)

Abstract:

Well crystallized niobium-doped TiO2 nanotube arrays (TiNbO-NT) were successfully synthesized via the anodization of titanium/niobium alloy sheets, followed with a heat treatment at 550 °C for 2 h. Morphology analysis results demonstrated that both the titanium/niobium alloy microstructure and the dissolution strength of electrolyte played major roles in the formation of nanotube structure. A single-phase microstructure was more favorable to the formation of uniform nanotube arrays, while modulating the dissolution strength of electrolyte was required to obtain nanotube arrays from the alloys with multi-phase microstructures. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron (XPS) analysis results clearly demonstrated that niobium dopants (Nb5+) were successfully doped into TiO2 anatase lattice by substituting Ti4+ in this approach.

Key words: TiO2 ,  Nanotube arrays ,  Anodization  ,   Doping