Co₃O₄ anode materials exhibit poor conductivity and a large volume change, rendering controlling of their nanostructure essential to optimize their lithium storage performance. Carbon-doped Co₃O₄ hollow nanofibers (C-doped Co₃O₄ HNFs), for the first time are synthesized using bifunctional polymeric nanofibers as template and carbon source. Compared with undoped Co₃O₄ HNFs and solid Co₃O₄ NFs, C-doped Co₃O₄ HNFs feature a remarkably high specific capacity, excellent cycling stability, and superior rate capacity as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries. The superior performance of C-doped Co₃O₄ HNFs electrodes can be attributed to their structural features, which confer enhanced electron transportation and Li⁺ ion diffusion due to C-doping, and tolerance for volume change due to the 1D hollow structure. Density functional theory calculations provide a good explanation of the observed enhanced conductivity in C-doped Co₃O₄ HNFs.

In this work, Bi₂Se₃ stacking nanoplates composed of three (or five) thin nanosheets have been successfully fabricated in the presence of ethylene glycol (EG) and by applying sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as surfactant. The microstructure and morphology of the obtained products were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, field-emission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, selected-area electron diffraction, and Raman spectroscopy techniques. We found that the power factor can be tuned by energy filtering. The maximum power factor of 179 μW m^–1 K^–2 can be obtained for the sample (CMC-3) by using CMC3 (viscosity, 300–800 mPa s) as surfactant at 544 K, which is about 14 % higher than that of the sample prepared with no CMC as surfactant.

In the title coordination polymer, {[Cd(C₆H₈O₄S)(C₁₃H₁₄N₂)]·H₂O}_n, the Cd^II atom displays a distorted octahedral coordination, formed by three carboxylate O atoms and one S atom from three different 3,3′-thiodipropionate ligands, and two N atoms from two different 4,4′-(propane-1,3-diyl)dipyridine ligands. The Cd^II centres are bridged through carboxylate O atoms of 3,3′-thiodipropionate ligands and through N atoms of 4,4′-(propane-1,3-diyl)dipyridine ligands to form two different one-dimensional chains, which intersect to form a two-dimensional layer. These two-dimensional layers are linked by S atoms of 3,3′-thiodipropionate ligands from adjacent layers to form a three-dimensional network.

This paper describes a facile, template-free synthesis of AgCl hierarchical structures by a gas–liquid interfacial method and the morphology of AgCl (microrods or film) can be conveniently varied or controlled by changing the solvents of AgNO₃ without using any surfactants. The AgCl composites were then photoreduced to form highly efficient visible-light plasmonic photocatalyst Ag@AgCl nanostructures. SEM, XRD, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and UV/Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy were used to characterize the obtained product. The photocatalytic activity of the obtained product was evaluated by the photodegradation of methyl orange pollutant under visible-light irradiation, and it was found that Ag@AgCl microrods exhibited high visible-light photocatalytic activity and good stability.

Well-defined (three-dimensional) 3-D dandelion-like Sb₂S₃ nanostructures consisted of numerous nanorods have been achieved via a facile citric acid-assisted solvothermal process. The as-prepared products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution TEM (HRTEM), respectively. The influence factors of the formation of the hierarchical Sb₂S₃ nanostructures are discussed in details based on FESEM characterizations. By simply controlling the quantity of citric acid, the nucleation and growth process can be readily tuned, which brings the different morphologies and nanostructures of the final products. On the basis of a series of contrastive experiments, the aggregation-based process and anisotropic growth mechanism are reasonably proposed to understand the formation mechanism of Sb₂S₃ hierarchical architectures with distinctive morphologies including nanorods, and dandelion-like nanostructures. Charge-discharge curves of the obtained Sb₂S₃ nanostructures were measured to investigate their electrochemical hydrogen storage behaviors. It revealed that the morphology played a key role on the hydrogen storage capacity of Sb₂S₃ nanostructure. The dandelion-like Sb₂S₃ nanostructures exhibited higher hydrogen storage capacity (108 mAh g⁻¹) than that of Sb₂S₃ nanorods (95 mAh g⁻¹) at room temperature.

N-doped Nb₂O₅ sensitized by carbon nitride polymer (CNNO) was synthesized as a yellowish powder by using urea as a carbon–nitrogen precursor. CNNO was tested as a catalyst for the visible-light-responsive photodegradation of dyes. HNbO₃, one of the precursors of CNNO, was obtained from LiNbO₃ by a H⁺–Li⁺ ion-exchange reaction and then pyrolyzed at 400 °C to produce a Nb₂O₅ substrate. The photocatalytic activities of as-prepared samples were evaluated by the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) under Xe lamp irradiation (λ > 400 nm), for which the photocatalysts showed relatively high activities. XRD, thermogravimetry and differential scanning calorimetry (TG–DSC), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), TEM, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV/Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) measurements were utilized to explore the characteristics of the obtained samples. The results demonstrated that the surface of Nb₂O₅ was successfully coated, as a semitransparent layer of CN polymer surrouding the dark substrate was observed. UV/Vis DRS showed that the absorption edges of CNNO were shifted remarkably to the visible region relative to those of naked Nb₂O₅. These results revealed that the significantly enhanced photocatalytic activities of the CNNO samples originate from the CN polymer. The coating led to an efficient electron transfer between the CN polymer, which acted as a photosensitizer, and the N-doped Nb₂O₅. The degradation mechanism that underlies the excellent photocatalytic activity of CNNO was discussed extensively.

Without using any templates or surfactants, hierarchical ZnS-In₂S₃-CuS nanospheres with nanoporous structure are successfully synthesized via a simple and convenient process. The nanospheres are aggregations of densely packed nanoparticles and nanorods. Different to the oriented attachment (OA) mechanism reported in the literature, the formation of these nanorods is believed to follow a lateral OA mechanism (nanoparticles attach along the direction perpendicular to the crystallographic axes with lateral planes as the juncture) based on the experimental data. This process could be a general phenomenon and would provide a new insight into the OA mechanism. A detailed time-resolved TEM kinetic study of the formation of the complex structure is shown. The dipole mechanism and electric field-induced growth are found to be responsible for the final architecture. Photocatalytic activities for water splitting are investigated under visible-light irradiation (λ > 400 nm) and an especially high photocatalytic activity (apparent yield of 22.6% at 420 nm) is achieved by unloaded ZnIn_0.25Cu_0.02S_1.395 prepared at 180 °C for 18 h because of their high crystallinity, large pore volume, and the presence of nanorods with special microstructures.

Lead sulfide (PbS) with various morphologies including flowerlike, microsphere, multipod, six-armed star, and truncated octahedron has been synthesized selectively under hydrothermal conditions. The synthesis procedure variables such as concentration of the citric acid (CA), kinds of surfactant, reaction temperature, and reaction time were observed to influence the resultant shape of PbS microstructures. The structure and morphology of the obtained products were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. On the basis of the time-dependent experimental data, the possible formation mechanism related to facet-selective growth and dissolution–recrystallization was presented. Furthermore, the electrical conductivities for different morphologies of PbS were measured to investigate the possible effect of morphology on the electrical conductivity.