Effect of NaOH on the preparation of two-dimensional flake-like zirconia nanostructures

The monolayer flake-like zirconia was prepared by a clean molten salt method, which does not require any adsorbent and template. The effects of NaOH on the composition, morphology and structure of zirconia were studied by XRD, IR, Raman, FE-SEM and TEM. The nanostructures synthesized under 2 wt% NaOH exhibit definite flake-like geometry with a large percentage of (0   0   1) plane, which measure approximately 1.8 μm long and 80 nm thick. This concomitant phase and morphology change originate from the martensite transformation of metastable tetragonal zirconia. The as-prepared zirconia sheet has potential utility in fields as diverse as chemical adsorption and photocatalysis.