Abstract
M.Sc. (Chemistry)
Barium titanate (BaTi03) is an important material in the electronics industry as a result of its
excellent dielectric properties. It has been the subject of many studies since its initial discovery,
which have focussed on a wide variety of different aspects, including its synthesis, the
identification of the crystal structures of its various phases, and also attempts to determine the
various factors that could explain its unusual electrical properties.
Since barium titanate has been studied by this wide range of disciplines, the information
regarding this material is scattered over many sources. This study contains a literature survey of
some of the significant work on barium titanate, in order to collect, and order, the available data
into a coherent picture of the state of knowledge pertaining to the crystal structure, syntheses and
electric properties of the material. From this study, it was clear that there was a distinct lack of
consistent findings with respect to the identification of the tetragonal phase crystal structure. The
tetragonal phase is the requisite one since it is ferroelectric, although the cubic phase also plays
a significant role when the material is in the form of a very fine powder. The exact influence of
the small particle size is also shown to be the object of much debate amongst the scientific
community. Another area of inquiry which has attracted much attention in the past is that of the
synthesis of barium titanate. The synthesis of a pure phase of barium titanate requires an intimate
mixture of components which is not obtained using the standard solid-state method of synthesis,
thus resulting in researchers switching to solvent-based methods of preparation.
The present study also contains a summary of several of these published methods, from which
four suitable methods have been selected according to certain criteria. These Criteria are that the
method should be simple, use easily available materials and have been reported as having good
results in terms of their dielectric properties and structural composition. It is also important that
the syntheses are easy to control, to enable the extension of the work to synthesise other
perovskites, poly titanates and doped barium titanate.