Microporous indium phosphate from hydrothermal-microemulsion systems

Abstract

Microporous indium phosphate was synthesized from hydrothermal reactions of H3PO4, In2O3, H2O and Et3N in modified microemulsion systems. Polycrystalline indium phosphate particles of less than 10 μm were formed instead of the much larger single crystals obtained by the conventional hydrothermal method. The morphology of the particles was closely related to the compositions of the microemulsion used. However, both microemulsion and conventional systems produced an identical structure of indium phosphate as characterised by X-ray diffraction, FT-IR and thermogravimetric analysis. The advantage of using this new thermal-microemulsion method is that the reaction time can be reduced at least by half compared with the conventional hydrothermal method.