Hydrothermal Assisted Sol-Gel Process on Binary Mixtures of Aluminum and Titanium Alkoxides: A Novel Route for the Fabrication of Single Phase Tialite

Combination of sol-gel and hydrothermal routes in the metal alkoxide binary system of Al(OR)3-Ti(OR)4 (R= -CH(CH3)2 or -CH2CH2OCH3) were investigated to prepare single phase aluminum titanate (tialite). The effects of various parameters, such as hydrothermal processing temperature, solvent polarity and the type of alkoxide precursor, in phase development of the product powders have been investigated. Phase development of the product powders was followed by means of infrared spectroscopy (IR), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and thermal analysis (TG/DSC). Results of XRD patterns showed that when the polarity of solvent increased by using a mixture of toluene and isopropanol instead of pure toluene solvent, phase development of the product powder retarded and needed higher temperature (more than 1400ºC) to produce single phase tialite. Similar effect was observed when aluminum 2-methoxyethoxide and titanium 2-methoxyethoxide used instead of the aluminum iso-propoxide and titanium iso-propoxide. These observations were attributed to the more controlled hydrolysis conditions in the hydrothermal assisted sol-gel process.