Controlled synthesis and characterization of large-scale, uniform sheet-shaped dysprosium hydroxide nanosquares by hydrothermal method

In this study, we succeed in synthesizing the sheet-shaped dysprosium hydroxide (Dy(OH)(3)) nanomaterials via a facile hydrothermal method without using any catalysts or templates. The advantages of the method are rapid synthesis at air atmosphere, 100% productive ratio and low cost with a great potential for scale-up. Analytical method such as XRD, FESEM, TEM, HRTEM, SAED, EDS, FT-IR, TG-DSC were employed to characterize the morphology and microstructure of the as-synthesized products. The results reveal that nanosheets could be obtained by using ammonia and sodium hydroxide, and the Dy(OH)(3) obtained by adding ammonia possesses uniform sheet-shaped nanosquare morphology with the side length of 200-300 nm and thickness of 20-40 nm. The growth of (001) plane of nanosheets was confined. The presence of a two dimensional (2D) growth trend was suggested. The role of the alkaline sources and the formation mechanism of such sheet-shaped Dy(OH)(3) were discussed. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.