Effect of milling time on mechanochemical synthesis of TiO2 nanoparticles

Titanium dioxide nanoparticles have great potential for use in photocatalytic applications, cosmetics, white pigments and so on. In this paper, the effect of milling time on particle size, morphology and phase composition of TiO2 nanoparticles, prepared by mechanochemical method, was investigated by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). TiO2 nanoparticles were prepared by the use of high energy ball milling of titanyl sulphate (TiOSO4) and NaCl powders as the starting mixture in different milling durations. The milled powder was annealed at 700 degrees C for 30 min. The NaCl powder, used as the diluent phase, was removed by washing the annealed powder with distilled water. It was found that with increasing milling time, decrease in the size of equiaxed spherical particles and increase in temperature of anatase to rutile transformation (A -> R) can be observed.