Fractal studies on titanium-silica aerogels using SMARTer

Abstract

Power-law scattering approximation has been employed to reveal the fractal structures of solid-state titanium-silica aerogel samples. All small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) measurements were performed using 36 meters SANS BATAN spectrometer (SMARTer) at the neutron scattering laboratory (NSL) in Serpong, Indonesia. The mass fractal dimension of titanium-silica aerogels at low scattering vector q range increases from -1.4 to -1.92 with the decrease of acid concentrations during sol-gel process. These results are attributed to the titanium-silica aerogels that are growing to more polymeric and branched structures. At high scattering vector q range the Porod slope of -3.9 significantly down to -2.24 as the roughness of particle surfaces becomes higher. The cross over between these two regimes decreases from 0.4 to 0.16nm-1 with the increase of acid concentrations indicating also that the titanium-silica aerogels are growing.