The reversible cycling of CaO adsorbents to CaCO₃ for high-temperature CO₂ capture is substantially improved by mechanical treatment. The mechanical milling intensity and conditions of grinding (e.g., wet vs. dry, planetary vs. vibratory milling) were determined to be the main factors that control the effectiveness of the mechanochemical synthesis to enhance the recycling stability of the sorbents prepared. In addition, MgO was used as an example of an inert binder to help mitigate CaCO₃ sintering. Wet planetary milling of MgO into CaCO₃ allowed efficient particle size reduction and the effective dispersion of MgO throughout the particles. Wet planetary milling yielded the most stable sorbents during 50 cycles of carbonation–calcination.

Ag nanoclusters consist of several to roughly a hundred atoms and possess sizes comparable to the Fermi wavelength of electrons; they exhibit molecule-like properties, including discrete electronic transitions and strong fluorescence. These nanoclusters are of significant interest because they provide the bridge between atomic and nanoparticle behavior in noble metals. Since the first observations of photoluminescence from Ag nanoclusters, substantial effort has been made to prepare Ag nanoclusters and explore their potential applications. The synthesis of well-defined Ag nanoclusters, however, is difficult due to aggregation of nanoclusters, especially in aqueous solutions. In this Research News article, we highlight some recent progress on solution-based synthesis of water-soluble Ag nanoclusters using radiolytic, chemical reduction and photochemical approaches to prepare fluorescent Ag nanoclusters.

Recent advances in nanostructured materials have been led by the development of new synthetic methods that provide control over size, morphology, and nano/microstructure. The utilization of high intensity ultrasound offers a facile, versatile synthetic tool for nanostructured materials that are often unavailable by conventional methods. The primary physical phenomena associated with ultrasound that are relevant to materials synthesis are cavitation and nebulization. Acoustic cavitation (the formation, growth, and implosive collapse of bubbles in a liquid) creates extreme conditions inside the collapsing bubble and serves as the origin of most sonochemical phenomena in liquids or liquid-solid slurries. Nebulization (the creation of mist from ultrasound passing through a liquid and impinging on a liquid-gas interface) is the basis for ultrasonic spray pyrolysis (USP) with subsequent reactions occurring in the heated droplets of the mist. In both cases, we have examples of phase-separated attoliter microreactors: for sonochemistry, it is a hot gas inside bubbles isolated from one another in a liquid, while for USP it is hot droplets isolated from one another in a gas. Cavitation-induced sonochemistry provides a unique interaction between energy and matter, with hot spots inside the bubbles of ∼5000 K, pressures of ∼1000 bar, heating and cooling rates of >10¹⁰ K s⁻¹; these extraordinary conditions permit access to a range of chemical reaction space normally not accessible, which allows for the synthesis of a wide variety of unusual nanostructured materials. Complementary to cavitational chemistry, the microdroplet reactors created by USP facilitate the formation of a wide range of nanocomposites. In this review, we summarize the fundamental principles of both synthetic methods and recent development in the applications of ultrasound in nanostructured materials synthesis.