Polymer-controlled mineralization in aqueous solution or in a mixed solvent media, as well as its com-bination with the interface of air-water can lead to the formation of minerals with unique structures and morphologies, which sheds light on the possibility to mimic the detailed structures of the natural min-erals.
Three-dimensional (3D) carbon nanotube networks (CNNW) have been successfully constructed by a simple solution route for the first time. The as-obtained networks consist of the ordered alignment of nanotubes cross-linked with a joint-angle of approximately 90o. Also, the joint points in the networks are very stable and the hollowing joints are conducted with the neighbored carbon nanotubes. These network characteristics would receive much attention to the applications such as electrical conductiv-ity and even mass transport. Further work found that the as-obtained CNNW and CNNW/silver com-posites can both be applied as NH3 gas sensors. The solution-phase technique for the construction of CNNWs made the assembling networks possible without introducing physical and complicated meth-odologies, providing an alternative way for the next generation carbon nanotube assembly.
One-dimensional magnetic Ni Co alloy microwires with different microstructures and differently shaped building blocks including spherical particles,multilayer stacked alloy plates,and alloy flowers,have been synthesized by an external magnetic field-assisted solvothermal reaction of mixtures of cobalt(II)chloride and nickel(II)chloride in 1,2-propanediol with different NaOH concentrations.By adjusting the experimental parameters,such as precursor concentration and Ni/Co ratio,Ni Co alloy chains with uniform diameters in the range 500 nm to 1.3μm and lengths ranging from several micrometers to hundreds of micrometers can be obtained.A mechanism of formation of the one-dimensional assemblies of magnetic NiCo microparticles in a weak external magnetic fi eld is proposed.
Uniform hollow Au@TiO2 core shell spheres with moveable Au nanoparticles were synthesized based on templating against Au@carbon spheres.The diameter of the shell of the Au@TiO2 spheres could be controlled by adjusting the Ti(OC4H9)4 hydrolyzing reaction time or the ratio of Ti(OC4H9)4 to Au@carbon spheres,and the shell thickness of the core-shell spheres can be varied from 25 nm to 40 nm.As prepared hollow Au@TiO2 core-shell spheres display enhanced photocatalytic activity in the initial stage of photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue compared with pure hollow TiO2 spheres and the commercial photocatalyst TiO2(P-25).
