A hydrothermal assisted method to prepare Samarium Tungstate sheets at lowered reaction temperature

In the present work, a hydrothermal-assisted synthesis of sheet-like Samarium Tungstate powders is developed. The structures and morphology of these powders were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Results show that a new phase of SmWO4(OH) was obtained during the hydrothermal reaction. This phase was further used as precursor to obtain Sm2WO6 crystallites with much lowered heating temperature during the calcination. Furthermore, both of the SmWO4(OH) and Sm2WO6 products were found to exhibit sheet-like microstructures without obvious morphological differences, suggesting that controlling the precursor microstructure is an effective approach to maintain the calcined Sm2WO6 morphology. Finally, the schematic comparison between hydrothermal assisted method and conventional solid state reaction method was presented. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.