Preparation of Elongated Hexagonal Pyramids and Hexagonal Prisms of SrCO3Using Hydrothermal Reactions

Strontium carbonate (S1CO3) is important inorganic material and is widely used as an additive in the glass of color televi sion tubes to block X-rays and improve glass quality.SrCOs is also used in ferrite magnets, pigments, iridescent materials, and as a catalyst.1-3The development of specific microstruc ture morphologies has attracted significant interest due to their novel properties and potential applications.4,5Recently, a variety of SrCO3 micro-and nano-structures, such as, rods, wires, ribbons, flowers, hexagonal prisms, and spheres, have been synthesized.6-9Furthermore, soft-templates are commonly used to fabricate SrCO3 crystals with specific morphologies.For example, dumbbell-like crystals were prepared using a poly (styrene-alt-maleic acid), and ribbon-and flower-like crystals were prepared using anionic surfactant and mixed nonionic/ anionic surfactants, respectively.10-12In this paper, we report a simple hydrothermal method free of surfactants that can be used to prepare elongated hexagonal pyramidal SrCO3 crystals from strontium nitrate and urea.Furthermore, the aspect ratios of the hexagonal prisms and rods produced were controlled by adding N,N,N\N' -tetramethylethylenediamine (TMEDA) to the hydrothermal reaction between Sr(NO3)2 and urea as a structure-directing agent.