Fractal studies on titanium-silica aerogels using SMARTer

• Main Authors: Putra, Erwin Giri Rachman, Ikram, Abarrul, Bharoto, Bharoto, Santoso, E., Fang, T. Chiar, Ibrahim, N., Mohamed, Abdul Aziz
• Format: Book Section
• Published: American Institute of Physics 2008
• Subjects: Q Science (General); QC Physics
• Online Access: http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/12571/; http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.2906047
• Institution: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

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.