Microemulsion-Mediated Synthesis of Calcium Silicate Nanostructures

Controlled synthesis of calcium silicate nanostructures with morphologies of spheres and whiskers were successfully achieved by cationic surfactant-CTAB-microemulsion-mediated solvothermal method.Various comparison experiments showed that the molar concentration ratio between water and CTAB and the concentration of reactants play important roles in the morphological control of calcium silicate nanostructures.A mechanism was proposed for the selective formation of various morphologies.A higher molar ratio and increased concentration of reactants favor more reactants aggregating in the water pool,leading to larger size of the products and accelerate the crystallizing process,resulting in whiskers in the nanostructures.On the contrary,a lower molar ratio favors spherical products.