I currently have TiO2 nanowires from ACS materials as a wet cake and I want to disperse them in water. It seemed to be a trivial task but is highly complicated since I cannot use ultrasonication (breaks the NW). I have used a LOT of Vortexing but its not really dispersing them. Any suggestions?
Byron Llerena why water?
You can use other solvent such as ethanol easily disperse TiO2.
I agree with Rohit, a short-chain alcohol may work; I have used them for the dispersion of other low-dimensional oxides. You can also look into something analogous to intercalation species in 2D materials as shown by Sasaki for TiOx nanosheets:
Article Oversized Titania Nanosheet Crystallites Derived from Flux-G...
try ammoniumcitrate pH 8.5 this works quite nicely for titania. You may also use a commercial surfactant CE64 supplied by Z&S GErmany
What is the size of the NW? Depending on their length, you may need to use different polar solvents to avoid them from dropping out .
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