TiO2-Seeded Hydrothermal Growth of Spherical BaTiO3 Nanocrystals for Capacitor Energy-Storage Application

Simple but robust growth of spherical BaTiO3 nanoparticles with uniform nanoscale sizes is of great significance for the miniaturization of BaTiO3-based electron devices. This paper reports a TiO2-seeded hydrothermal process to synthesize spherical BaTiO3 nanoparticles with a size range of 90–100 nm using TiO2 (Degussa) and Ba(NO3)2 as the starting materials under an alkaline (NaOH) condition. Under the optimum conditions ([NaOH] = 2.0 mol L−1, RBa/Ti = 2.0, T = 210 °C and t = 8 h), the spherical BaTiO3 nanoparticles obtained exhibit a narrow size range of 91 ± 14 nm, and the corresponding BaTiO3/polymer/Al film is of a high dielectric constant of 59, a high break strength of 102 kV mm−1, and a low dielectric loss of 0.008. The TiO2-seeded hydrothermal growth has been proved to be an efficient process to synthesize spherical BaTiO3 nanoparticles for potential capacitor energy-storage applications.