One-step hydrothermal synthesis of a TiO2-Ti3C2Tx nanocomposite with small sized TiO2 nanoparticles

A TiO2-Ti3C2Tx nanocomposite was prepared using a simple and facile one-step hydrothermal method. The small sized TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized and assembled on the surface of Ti3C2Tx nanosheets using Ti3C2Tx itself as titanium source by in-situ technique. The microstructure of TiO2-Ti3C2Tx nanocomposite was characterized by means of XRD、FESEM、TEM、XPS and Raman, respectively. The effects of ethanol and hydrothermal holding time on the size of TiO2 nanoparticles were investigated. The results show that adding proper amount of ethanol into pure water results in decrease of the size of TiO2 nanoparticles. Under ethanol-water mixed solution, increasing the time of hydrothermal treatment results in growth and even aggregation of TiO2 nanoparticles. The TiO2 nanoparticles with average particle size of 30 nm were obtained when the hydrothermal treatment was conducted in ethanol-water mixed solution at 200 ℃ for 12 h.