A kinetics-controlled coating method to construct 1D attapulgite @ amorphous titanium oxide nanocomposite with high electrorheological activity

A new kind of one-dimension attapulgite (APG) @ titanium oxide nanoparticles was prepared via kinetics-controlled coating method. By simply altering the ammonia content and reaction time to control the kinetics of hydrolysis and condensation of tetra-n-butyl titanate (TBOT) in ethanol/ammonia mixtures, amorphous titanium oxide nanoparticles can adhere to the APG rods firmly, and the thickness of uniform amorphous titanium oxide shells can be adjusted from 0 to 40 nm. The obtained APG@ titanium oxide nanorods were applied as a new electrorheological (ER) fluid, which showed a promising ER activity. The yield stresses of the APG@ titanium oxide nanorod (40-nm shell thickness) ER fluid under electric field was 2.1 times of the granular titanium oxide ER fluid and 4.1 times of the APG ER fluid. And, the APG@ titanium oxide nanorod ER fluid also exhibited distinctly improved suspended stability.