Hydrothermal synthesis of β-bismuth oxide nanowires from particles

β-Bi2O3 nanowires have been synthesized via a facile hydrothermal approach using commercial Bi2O3 and K2SO4 as raw materials in aqueous solution. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and HRTEM results showed us that the structure of the as-synthesized nanowires was in agreement with the (110) planes of β-Bi2O3 particles. The vibration of the [BiO6] configuration appeared in the infra-red (IR) spectra of the nanowires. TEM results revealed that the β-Bi2O3 nanowires diameter ranged from 30 to 100 nm and the length was up to tens of micrometres. The IR and atomic adsorption spectrophotometer (AAS) results indicated that the crystal growth of β-Bi2O3 was carried out through Bi(SO4)n3−2n complexes. The ion-exchange results further confirmed that the SO42− ions were adsorbed on the surface of β-Bi2O3 nanowires. The shape-controlled mechanism of the nanowires was proposed as well.