Self-Assembled 3D Flower-Like Hierarchical β-Ni(OH)2Hollow Architectures and their In Situ Thermal Conversion to NiO

Lu-Ping Zhu,Gui-Hong Liao,Ji-Fen Wang,Shao-Yun Fu,Hong-Mei Xiao,Yang Yang

doi:10.1007/s11671-009-9279-9

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) flower-like hierarchicalβ-Ni(OH)2hollow architectures were synthesized by a facile hydrothermal route. The as-obtained products were well characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM (HRTEM), SAED, and DSC-TGA. It was shown that the 3D flower-like hierarchicalβ-Ni(OH)2hollow architectures with a diameter of several micrometers are assembled from nanosheets with a thickness of 10–20 nm and a width of 0.5–2.5 μm. A rational mechanism of formation was proposed on the basis of a range of contrasting experiments. 3D flower-like hierarchical NiO hollow architectures with porous structure were obtained after thermal decomposition at appropriate temperatures. UV–Vis spectra reveal that the band gap of the as-synthesized NiO samples was about 3.57 eV, exhibiting obviously red shift compared with the bulk counterpart.

Highlights

Ordered self-assembly of nanoscale building blocks, such as nanoparticles, nanorods, nanoribbons, and so forth, into complex architectures has recently become a hot topic in material research fields
Hollow structures prepared from hard templating routes (e.g. PS latex particles) usually suffer from disadvantages related to high cost and tedious synthetic procedures, which may prevent them from being used in large-scale applications [11]
The 3D flower-like hierarchical b-Ni(OH)2 hollow architectures have been synthesized by a facile hydrothermal route in the presence of urea and ammonia

Summary

Introduction

Ordered self-assembly of nanoscale building blocks, such as nanoparticles, nanorods, nanoribbons, and so forth, into complex architectures has recently become a hot topic in material research fields. We describe a facile hydrothermal route to synthesize highly ordered 3D flower-like hierarchical b-Ni(OH)2 hollow architectures with a high yield. The formation mechanism of the 3D flower-like hierarchical b-Ni(OH)2 hollow architectures was proposed.

Results

Conclusion