Formation of monolithic SrTiO3-TiO2 ceramic heterostructures by reactive hydrothermal sintering

In a one-pot approach, monolithic SrTiO3-TiO2 ceramic heterostructures were obtained using the reactive hydrothermal liquid phase densification (rHLPD). Structural, morphological, and photocatalytic properties of the obtained ceramics were analyzed. The relative density of the formed components reached about 80% with reaction time, temperature, and NaOH concentration variation. It was observed via Rietveld refinement that there was no XRD detectable phase other than TiO2 and SrTiO3 in the final structure. The monolithic SrTiO3-TiO2 ceramics obtained by hydrothermal reaction at 120 °C for 24 h in 1 M NaOH concentration showed a dielectric constant being around 500, and the dielectric loss was below 0.25 at frequencies higher than 10 kHz. The SrTiO3-TiO2 heterostructured monoliths having only 20 vol% total porosity and low specific surface area, demonstrated ∼60% efficiency (in 5 h) in degrading Methylene Blue photo-catalytically. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd