Template-Free Hydrothermal Synthesis of Octahedron-, Diamond-, and Plate-like ZrO(2) Mono-Dispersions

Anisotropic ZrO [Formula: see text] particles with octahedron-, diamond- and plate-like morphologies are successfully synthesized by a facile hydrothermal treatment approach using NaBF [Formula: see text] as mineralizer. The concentration of mineralizers play a crucial role on the formation of shape-controlled ZrO [Formula: see text] particles thus affect the particle size. With the increasing concentration of mineralizer, the crystalline sizes of the primary single-crystal and the secondary particle size both increase. With the introduction of NaBF [Formula: see text] , F [Formula: see text] plays an essential role in tuning the crystallinity and size of primary ZrO [Formula: see text] nanorods along [001] direction. The synergistic effect of F [Formula: see text] and B [Formula: see text] result in different epitaxial growth rate. And the secondary particles mainly crystallize on the small primary nanoparticles through the oriented attachment mechanism. The as-prepared ZrO [Formula: see text] particles with different sizes and shapes exhibit different photocatalytic efficiency for the degradation of organic dyes. Under UV irradiation, the highest MB degradation rate of 88% was observed within 60 min for ZrO [Formula: see text] photocatalyst synthesized with 0.01 mol/L NaBF [Formula: see text] mineralizer.