Synthesis of Barium Titanate Using Deep Eutectic Solvents

Novel synthetic routes to prepare functional oxides at lower temperatures are an increasingly important area of research. Many of these synthetic routes, however, use water as the solvent and rely on dissolution of the precursors, precluding their use with, for example, titanates. Here we present a low-cost solvent system as a means to rapidly create phase-pure ferroelectric barium titanate using a choline chloride-malonic acid deep eutectic solvent. This solvent is compatible with alkoxide precursors and allows for the rapid synthesis of nanoscale barium titanate powders at 950 °C. The phase and morphology were determined, along with investigation of the synthetic pathway, with the reaction proceeding via BaCl2 and TiO2 intermediates. The powders were also used to create sintered ceramics, which exhibit a permittivity maximum corresponding to a tetragonal-cubic transition at 112 °C, as opposed to the more conventional temperature of ∼120 °C. The lower-than-expected value for the ferro- to para-electric phase transition is likely due to undetectable levels of contaminants.