Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 17304–17311 www.materialstoday.com/proceedings 2214-7853© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of Advances in Materials & Processing: Challenges & Opportunities (AMPCO-2017). AMPCO-2017 Thermodynamic Modelling and Characterisation of TiO 2 nanoparticles Produced by Wire Explosion Process Prem Ranjan a , Esun Selvam b , Rengaswamy Jayaganthan c , Hisayuki Suematsu d , Ramanujam Sarathi a, * a Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras, Chennai, 600036 India b Department of Chemical Engineering, NIT-Trichy, Tiruchirappalli, 620 015, India c Department of Engineering Design, IIT Madras, Chennai, 600036 India d Extreme Energy-Density Research Institute, Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, 940-2188 Japan Abstract Reaction mechanism for formation of Titania (TiO 2 ) nanoaparticles by Wire Explosion Process (WEP) is described. Titanium wire and oxygen gas were the starting materials for the experiment. Energy (E) stored in capacitor and oxygen pressure (P) were varied. Rutile content of TiO 2 increases and particle size decreases with increase in E and/or decrease in P. Homogenous nucleation theory was used to predict the activation energy and nucleation rate which is used to elucidate the experimental results. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of Advances in Materials & Processing: Challenges & Opportunities (AMPCO-2017). Keywords:Titanium dioxide; nanoparticles; Wire Explosion; nucleation rate 1. INTRODUCTION Titanium dioxide or Titania (TiO 2 ) is a widely investigated material due to its non-toxicity, excellent physical and chemical properties, leading to different functional applications. Fujishima and Honda [1] investigated TiO 2 electrodes for water splitting whose work has inspired scientists to investigate numerous applications of TiO 2 [2]. In last few decades, an enormous development in nanotechnology [3] enabled materials scientists to tailor the properties of material as per our requirements through process engineering and microstructural modifications.. A very high suface area of titania nanoparticles significantly improve its physical and chemical properties. It is applied * Corresponding author. E-mail address:rsarathi@iitm.ac.in (Ramanujam Sarathi)