There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

This review focuses on the synthesis, protection, functionalization, and application of magnetic nanoparticles, as well as the magnetic properties of nanostructured systems. Substantial progress in the size and shape control of magnetic nanoparticles has been made by developing methods such as co-precipitation, thermal decomposition and/or reduction, micelle synthesis, and hydrothermal synthesis. A major challenge still is protection against corrosion, and therefore suitable protection strategies will be emphasized, for example, surfactant/polymer coating, silica coating and carbon coating of magnetic nanoparticles or embedding them in a matrix/support. Properly protected magnetic nanoparticles can be used as building blocks for the fabrication of various functional systems, and their application in catalysis and biotechnology will be briefly reviewed. Finally, some future trends and perspectives in these research areas will be outlined.

Magnetic nanoparticles: Synthesis, protection, functionalization, and application

Hollow micro-/nanostructures are of great interest in many current and emerging areas of technology. Perhaps the best-known example of the former is the use of fly-ash hollow particles generated from coal power plants as partial replacement for Portland cement, to produce concrete with enhanced strength and durability. This review is devoted to the progress made in the last decade in synthesis and applications of hollow micro-/nanostructures. We present a comprehensive overview of synthetic strategies for hollow structures. These strategies are broadly categorized into four themes, which include well-established approaches, such as conventional hard-templating and soft-templating methods, as well as newly emerging methods based on sacrificial templating and template-free synthesis. Success in each has inspired multiple variations that continue to drive the rapid evolution of the field. The Review therefore focuses on the fundamentals of each process, pointing out advantages and disadvantages where appropriate. Strategies for generating more complex hollow structures, such as rattle-type and nonspherical hollow structures, are also discussed. Applications of hollow structures in lithium batteries, catalysis and sensing, and biomedical applications are reviewed.

Hollow Micro-/Nanostructures: Synthesis and Applications**

On the Controllable Soft-Templating Approach to Mesoporous Silicates

In this paper, the use of nanostructured anode materials for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is reviewed. Nanostructured materials such as nano-carbons, alloys, metal oxides, and metal sulfides/nitrides have been used as anodes for next-generation LIBs with high reversible capacity, fast power capability, good safety, and long cycle life. This is due to their relatively short mass and charge pathways, high transport rates of both lithium ions and electrons, and other extremely charming surface activities. In this review paper, the effect of the nanostructure on the electrochemical performance of these anodes is presented. Their synthesis processes, electrochemical properties, and electrode reaction mechanisms are also discussed. The major goals of this review are to give a broad overview of recent scientific researches and developments of anode materials using novel nanoscience and nanotechnology and to highlight new progresses in using these nanostructured materials to develop high-performance LIBs. Suggestions and outlooks on future research directions in this field are also given.

Recent developments in nanostructured anode materials for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries

Cubic Ia3d large mesoporous silica: synthesis and replication to platinum nanowires, carbon nanorods and carbon nanotubes

Assembly of mesostructured silica using Pluronic P123 triblock copolymer (EO20−PO70−EO20) and n-butanol mixture is a facile synthesis route to the MCM-48-like ordered large mesoporous silicas with the cubic Ia3d mesostructure. The cubic phase domain is remarkably extended by controlling the amounts of butanol and silica source correspondingly. The extended phase domain allows synthesis of the mesoporous silicas with various structural characteristics. Characterization by powder X-ray diffraction, nitrogen physisorption, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy reveals that the cubic Ia3d materials possess high specific surface areas, high pore volumes, and readily tunable pore diameters in narrow distribution of sizes ranging from 4 to 12 nm. Moreover, generation of complementary pores between the two chiral channels in the gyroid Ia3d structure can be controlled systematically depending on synthesis conditions. Carbon replicas, using sucrose as the carbon precursor, are obtai...

MCM-48-like Large Mesoporous Silicas with Tailored Pore Structure: Facile Synthesis Domain in a Ternary Triblock Copolymer−Butanol−Water System

A versatile synthetic method based on solvothermal technique has been developed for the fabrication of TiO2 nanocrystals with different shapes such as rhombic, truncated rhombic, spherical, dog-bone, truncated and elongated rhombic, and bar. The central features of our approach are the use of water vapor as hydrolysis agent to accelerate the reaction and the use of both oleic acid and oleylamine as two distinct capping surfactants which have different binding strengths to control the growth of the TiO2 nanoparticles. We also show that the presence of an appropriate amount of water vapor along with the desired oleic acid/oleylamine molar ratio plays a crucial role in controlling size and shape of TiO2 nanocrystals.

Shape-controlled synthesis of highly crystalline titania nanocrystals.

This contribution describes the preparation of multifunctional yolk–shell nanoparticles (YSNs) consisting of a core of silica spheres and an outer shell based on periodic mesoporous organosilica (PMO) with perpendicularly aligned mesoporous channels. The new yolk–shell hybrid materials were synthesised through a dual mesophase and vesicle soft templating method. The mesostructure of the shell, the dimension of the hollow space (4∼52 nm), and the shell thickness (16∼34 nm) could be adjusted by precise tuning of the synthesis parameters, as evidenced by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and nitrogen sorption investigations. Various metal nanoparticles (e.g., Au, Pt, and Pd) were encapsulated and confined in the void space between the core and the shell using impregnation and reduction of adequate metal precursors. The selective oxidation of various alcohol substrates was then carried out to illustrate the benefits of such an architecture in catalysis. High conversion (∼100%) and excellent selectivity (∼99%) were obtained over Pd nanoparticles encapsulated in the hybrid PMO yolk–shell structures.

Yolk–Shell Hybrid Materials with a Periodic Mesoporous Organosilica Shell: Ideal Nanoreactors for Selective Alcohol Oxidation

The present study is concerned with the nanocasting preparation of Co3O4 nanostructures employing two-dimensional (2D) hexagonal SBA-15 and three-dimensional (3D) cubic KIT-6 as hard templates. The...

Freddy Kleitz

Papers

Cubic Ia3d large mesoporous silica: synthesis and replication to platinum nanowires, carbon nanorods and carbon nanotubes

MCM-48-like Large Mesoporous Silicas with Tailored Pore Structure: Facile Synthesis Domain in a Ternary Triblock Copolymer−Butanol−Water System

Shape-controlled synthesis of highly crystalline titania nanocrystals.

Yolk–Shell Hybrid Materials with a Periodic Mesoporous Organosilica Shell: Ideal Nanoreactors for Selective Alcohol Oxidation

Hard templating pathways for the synthesis of nanostructured porous Co₃O₄