Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 April 2012
BiI3 is a semiconductor layered compound of growing interest for direct and digital imaging. This structure determines that bismuth tri-iodide crystals can grow with platelet habit. Thereby, we consider of great importance to study if such structure can determine nanoparticles of this material as well, that means, if such layers can be rolled in order to form nanotubes and/or nanorods. In light of this, the present work reports the synthesis of bismuth tri-iodide nanoparticles by the suspension method.
Bi(NO3)3.5H2O, I2 and KI were used as source materials, and 1-octadecene was used as suspension agent. The intermediate and final synthesized compounds were characterized by Xray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
Results clearly show that BiI3 nanoparticles can be synthesized by the suspension method, which means that the layer structure of these compounds can determine the growth of nanostructures. Nanoparticles of different sizes and morphologies were obtained, depending on the synthesis conditions. There has been not possible to control such conditions in order to obtain uniform size and morphology distributions. The use of these nanostructures may be an interesting way of improving nucleation and further growth of bismuth tri-iodide films.