Material Synthesis and Methodologies

TiO₂ materials have been widely employed in diverse areas, particularly in the areas of energy, storage, and environment. Therefore, different synthesis techniques have been developed to address the needs of this material, aiming to ease the fabrication process, to reduce the cost of fabrication setup, and most importantly to increase the functionality of the TiO₂ nanostructures in the aforementioned applications. TiO₂ thin films were synthesized using the solution of titanium trichloride and NaHCO₃. This chapter reviews the key process to produce 1D TiO₂ nanostructure (nanobelts, nanofibers, nanorods, nanowires, nanotubes) by hydrothermal reaction and anodic alumina oxide (AAO) template-assisted deposition. Hydrothermal reaction was also applied to prepare aligned single crystalline TiO₂ nanorods on fluorine-doped tin oxide substrate. After TiO₂ deposition and necessary post-treatment, the AAO templates are dissolved by acid or alkaline aqueous solution to obtain the ordered TiO₂ nanorods or nanotubes.