Title:

Kinetics of the Anatase - Rutile Transition

Titanium dioxide (TiO₂) is a material that has drawn attention for its chemical stability and versatile catalytic properties. The transitions among three crystalline structures, namely anatase, rutile, and brookite, are important for building and understanding the structure-property relationship of TiO₂. Meanwhile, chemical kinetics studies provide an efficient and powerful methodology to identify mechanisms behind chemical reactions. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was employed to study the underlying kinetics of the TiO₂ phase transition. Various heating rates (2.5-20°C/min) were investigated and, using the Ozawa-Flynn-Wall (OFW) method, values of the activation energy and pre-exponential factor were determined. Lastly, TGA data was fitted to a group of common kinetic models. Our results suggested the anatase-rutile transition is an exothermic process and, importantly, the transition follows a nucleation and nuclei growth mechanism. Our work provides the groundwork for understanding the structure transformation of TiO₂, leading to insight on its catalytic performances.

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