Effects of synthetic conditions on the structure and morphology of open-ended vanadium oxide nanotubes and study of their growth mechanism

Vanadium oxide nanotubes (VOx-NTs) have been synthesized by using n-butylamine as structure-directing template and V2O5 as precursor under hydrothermal conditions. XRD, FTIR, SEM, TEM, BET and TG-DTA characterizations have been performed to both optimize the synthetic conditions and understand the growth mechanism of VOx-NTs. The results showed that open-ended VOx-NTs were obtained under the optimized conditions (hydrothermal temperature: 150–160°C, hydrothermal time: 5–7 d, the molar ratio of V2O5 to n-butylamine is 1:1) with diameters ranging from about 30 to 100 nm and several micrometers in length. The BET surface area and the desorption cumulative pore volume of pores of the as-synthesized sample were about 27.4609 m2/g and 0.191087 cm3/g, respectively. The result presents that the synthesis of VOx-NTs is controlled by the “rolling” mechanism and temperature is primary driving force for rolling.