Morphological alteration of anatase titania nanostructures depend on the amount of Na ion intercalation

Controllable preparation of different nanoscale-shaped titania materials was realized by hydrothermal treatment of anatase TiO2 in an alkaline solution. The gradually changing morphologies and microstructures of titanium dioxide were investigated by powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. And a top-down path is illuminated to have an insight to the morphological evolution from nanoparticle to nanosheet by adjusting the concentrations of Na ion in the aqueous solution. The results of photocatalytic experiments indicated that the TiO2 nanobelts exhibited enhanced photocatalytic performance, due to their lower electron-hole recombination rate confirmed from the photoluminescence spectra. This study suggests that the photocatalysis efficiency of nanocrystals can be significantly improved by the shape-dependent morphological transformation.