of TAA/H3PO4, mixing all the products together at the same time. Afterwards, we
added in the form of drops a calculated amount of titanium butoxide to the previous
microemulsion. The mixture was agitated at room temperature for 1 h, after
which was formed a slightly viscous and transparent solution. This product was then
transferred into a Teflon-lined autoclave and sealed before being heated in an oven
at 180 ◦C for 1–30 days. After cooling, the solid product was separated by centrifugation
and further washed with correspondent solvents 3 times and with ethanol
twice. The product was air drying the time needed.
The infrared spectra was collected at room temperature using a FT-IR Bruker
Tensor-27 spectrometer from KBr pellets, over the range 4000–450 cm−1 by averaging
15 scans at a maximum resolution of 4 cm−1.
The powder X-ray diffraction pattern was recorded on X’Pert Philips diffractometer
with Cu K radiation ( = 1.5418A˚ ). The sample was gently ground in an
agate mortar in order to minimize the preferred orientation. Room temperature data
were collected at over the angular 2 range 3–46◦ with a step of 0.02◦ and a counting
time of 0.4 s/step.
The morphology of nanomaterials was investigated by means transmission electron
microscopy (TEM) [180 keV JEOL-2000 EX-II model]. For the TEM analysis the
materials were dispersed in ethanol and a drop of this suspension was deposited
onto a carbon-coated copper grid.