Room-temperature template-free synthesis of dumbbell-like SrSO₄ with hierarchical architecture

Novel dumbbell-like SrSO₄ with hierarchical architecture was fabricated with a facile template-free aqueous solution method at room temperature. The crystallographic morphology of SrSO₄ products depends mainly on the pH value of the reaction solution. The SrSO₄ products exhibit a dumbbell-like hierarchical architecture at pH=3 and 5, and have a tablet-like crystallographic morphology at pH=1 when keeping other reaction parameters unchanged. The dumbbell-like SrSO₄ synthesized at pH=3 has a length of 8-14 μm, and is composed of numerous well-aligned single crystalline nanoplates with an average width of 140 nm and a length of 0.7-1 μm. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of the crystallized SrSO₄ products is about 2.8 m² g^-1. A formation mechanism is proposed for the evolution process of dumbbell-like SrSO₄ with hierarchical architecture.