Synthesis of environmentally friendly ceramic materials via solvothermal reactions

Solvothermal reactions are designated as the reactions which use high temperatures and/or high pressure solvents. It is possible to control the acidbase reaction rate, morphology and agglomeration of the products, i.e., well dispersed nanoparticles with high crystallinity can be obtained by solvothermal reactions. Therefore, solvothermal reactions are expected to be used to generate environmentally friendly functional ceramic materials. Actually, various functional ceramics, such as tetragonal zirconia, with excellent thermal stability and mechanical properties, visible light responsive photocatalyst for environmental clean-up, high performance UV-shielding materials, etc. have been fabricated by solvothermal reactions. Unique plate-like ceria microparticles and the new Sn(II) titanate based compound which are impossible to be formed via a normal solid state reaction have also been formed.