Sol-gel Synthesis of Titania Nanoparticles for Photonic and Transformer Applications

Abstract

Titania nanoparticles have several industrial applications, including cosmetics, optical, photonic, and electrical devices. However, industrial production of these particles is difficult, complicated, and dependent on a variety of physical characteristics such as temperature and infrastructure availability. This research describes an instant industrial method for producing titania nanoparticles using a wet chemical sol-gel synthesis. X-ray diffractogram (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis of as-synthesized titania nanoparticles revealed a strong diffraction peak at Bragg angle 25  , which can be attributed to the titania anatase phase, and vibration bonds at 463 cm – 1 , which confirms the presence of titania. The morphology of these titania nanoparticles was examined using a field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), which determined the particle size to be around 37 nm. Using diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), the optical properties of the as-synthesized nanoparticles were studied, and their band gap was determined to be 3.37 eV. At room temperature, the dielectric constant and loss of titania nanoparticles were measured as a function of frequency. Additionally, titania particles were mixed into transformer oil to assess its dielectric breakdown strength for better insulating properties.