Synthesis of BaTiO3 nanoparticles by sol-gel assisted solid phase method and its formation mechanism and photocatalytic activity

In this paper, a new sol-gel assisted solid-phase method for the preparation of nano BaTiO3 ceramics is proposed to solve the shortcomings of too high temperature in solid-phase preparation and NO2 pollution produced by sol-gel method. The TiO2 precursor gel is used to encapsulate BaCO3, which can effectively reduce the temperature during calcination. In this study, XRD, FT-IR, XPS, TEM, SEM and TG-DSC were used to explore the structure and evolution of samples at different stages. In addition, the crystallization and growth process of BaTiO3 were further studied. Then the energy band structure and electron hole recombination of different samples were analyzed by UV–Vis and PL spectra. Finally, the photocatalytic activity of different samples was investigated by photolytic water experiment. The results showed that BaTiO3 was initially generated at 600 °C and pure phase BaTiO3 was generated at 800 °C. In the photolytic water experiment, the samples calcined at 700 °C showed the best photocatalytic performance, with a hydrogen production rate of 43.74 μmol/g/h.