Preparation of BaCrO4particles in the presence of EDTA from aqueous solutions

Abstract BaCrO4 particles with well-defined morphologies have been synthesized in the presence of EDTA as a crystal growth modifier from aqueous solutions. The influence of pH on the morphology of BaCrO4 crystals with and without EDTA additive was investigated to better understand the formation mechanism. EDTA has a strong interaction with the crystal faces of BaCrO4 and influences the final morphology of BaCrO4 crystals. In the presence of EDTA, BaCrO4 particles at pH = 6 always exhibit a spindle-like morphology due to the large inhibition effect of EDTA on the BaCrO4 crystallization. With decreasing pH, the particle morphology changes into a peanut-type at both pH = 5 and pH = 4 due to the relatively low inhibition and the following secondary heterogeneous nucleation and growth. The possible morphological evolution of BaCrO4 particles is also proposed. Keywords: BaCrO4 EDTANanostructured materialsCrystal growthAggregation Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank financial support from the National 863 High-Tech Project (2006AA03Z537), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC-No. 50572020 and 51021002), and the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-06-0339).