From nanoparticles to nanorods: Insights into the morphology changing mechanism of ceria.

Abstract It is of significant importance for the applications to controllably and facilely synthesize ceria with tunable morphology and exposed surfaces. A series of nanosized ceria with different morphology have been synthesized by a simple precipitation method under an inert atmosphere with no surfactant or template. nanoparticles and one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures of ceria have been prepared with Ce(NO 3) 3 and CeCl 3 as cerium precursor respectively. With different mole ratio of [Cl-: NO 3 -], the transition morphologies from nanoparticles to nanorods have been synthesized. The shape-controlling effect of these ions is due to their different roles in the oxidation of Ce(OH) 3 to Ce(OH) 4. The FT-IR analysis proves that the composite of Ce(OH) 3 could be oxidized by NO 3 - and the NO 3 - be reduced to NO. However, the existence of Cl- can inhibit the oxidizing capacity of NO 3 -. The anion-induced controllable synthesis, which is a surfactant- and template-free facile precipitation method, provides a potential route for fabricating ceria nanostructures for its various applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]