In situ tailoring the morphology of In(OH)3nanostructures via surfactants during anodization and their transformation into In2O3nanoparticles

Tariq Ali; Saima Mohyuddin; Ghafar Ali; Maaz Khan; Sajid Iqbal; Muhammad Maqbool; Sung Oh Cho

doi:10.1088/1361-6528/abf967

In situ tailoring the morphology of In(OH)₃nanostructures via surfactants during anodization and their transformation into In₂O₃nanoparticles

Nanotechnology. 2021 May 14;32(31). doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/abf967.

Authors

Tariq Ali¹, Saima Mohyuddin², Ghafar Ali³, Maaz Khan³, Sajid Iqbal⁴, Muhammad Maqbool⁵, Sung Oh Cho⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain 15551, United Arab Emirates.
² Department of Physics, Government Post Graduate College for Women, Haripur, KPK, Pakistan.
³ Nanomaterials Research Group (NRG), Physics Division, PINSTECH, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan.
⁴ Chemistry Division, PINSTECH, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan.
⁵ Department of Clinical & Diagnostic Sciences, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, United States of America.
⁶ Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering (NQe), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.

PMID: 33873159
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/abf967

Abstract

The present work reports the effect of various surfactants on the morphology of In(OH)₃nanostructures prepared via anodization. In-sheets were anodized in an environmentally benign electrolyte containing a small quantity of CTAB, CTAC, and PDDA surfactants at room temperature. The produced nanostructures were characterized using XRD, HRTEM, SAED, and EDAX. The morphology of indium hydroxide (In(OH)₃) nanostructures was successfully tailoredin situwith the help of surfactants in 1 M KCl aqueous electrolyte. XRD results confirmed the formation of In(OH)₃and indium oxyhydroxide (InOOH) nanostructures in the pristine form which were transformed into single-phase cubic In₂O₃nanoparticles (NPs) after calcination. HRTEM analyses showed that the morphology and size of the In(OH)₃nanostructures can be tuned to form nanorods, nanosheets and nanostrips using different surfactants. The results revealed that CTAC and PDDA surfactants have a profound effect on the morphology of In(OH)₃nanostructure compared to CTAB due to the higher concentration of Cl^-ion. The possible mechanism of surfactants effect on the morphology is proposed. Furthermore, annealing converted the In(OH)₃nanostructures into spherical In₂O₃NPs with uniform and homogeneous size. We anticipate that the morphology of other metal-oxides nanostructure can be tuned using this simple, facile and rapid technique. In₂O₃NPs prepared without and with CTAB surfactant were further explored for the non-enzymatic detection of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂). Electrochemical measurements showed enhanced electrocatalytic performance with fast electron transfer (∼2s) between the redox centers of H₂O₂and electrode surface. The In₂O₃NPs prepared using CTAB/Au electrode exhibited about 4-fold increase in sensitivity compared to the bare Au electrode. The biosensor also demonstrated good reproducibility, higher selectivity, and increased shelf life.

Keywords: In(OH)3 nanostructures; In2O3 nanoparticles; InOOH; KCl; anodization; sensor; surfactants.