Natural titanium dioxide nanotubes.

One-dimensional nanosized structures based on titanium dioxide are a desirable product because of their physical and chemical properties. The article considers production of titanium dioxide nanotubes based on ilmenite-leucoxene ores and products of their processing. Titanium dioxide nanotubes were synthesized by hydrothermal treatment in an alkaline solution from a gravity concentrate of ilmenite-leucoxene ore from the Pizhemskoe deposit. In the samples we found phases of quartz and sodium titanate Nax H_2–xTi₃O₇. Nanostructuring results in increasing specific surface area and decreasing band gap. We evaluated effectiveness of synthesized samples in the photocatalytic decomposition of organic pollutants in aqueous solutions. We showed that they were not inferior to commercial analogues by their effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]