From its initial use to describe hydrolysis and condensation processes, the term ‘sol–gel’ is now used for a diverse range of chemistries.

Nanostructured graphitic carbon with tunable mesoporosity is synthesized in one step from raw biomass.

Sol-gel chemistry is a powerful tool for the synthesis of porous or nanocrystalline structures of a wide range of materials. The morphology and composition of the final product can depend strongly on the mechanism that operates during the heating step, as has been demonstrated in many investigations of binary, ternary and quaternary metal oxides. We demonstrate the complex phase transformations occurring in a transition metal carbide (Fe 3 C, cementite) synthesis using in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction. Our new study proves the existence of multiple intermediate phases and elucidates how oxide-nitride and nitride-carbide phase transformations can occur. This is particularly important as many transition metal nitrides and carbides are metastable, which renders their stability windows sensitive to small changes in sol-gel methodology.

A fluorescent liquid pyrene derivative with a high fluorescence quantum yield (65%) in the bulk state is reported. With this as the sole oil phase, stable luminescent oil-in-water microemulsions have been prepared. Increasing the loading of liquid pyrene swells the droplets, as detected by small-angle neutron scattering. These larger droplets have a greater proportion of pyrene excimer emission contribution in their photoluminescence spectra, which leads to a red shift in the chromaticity of the emission.

Iron salts can change the structure and viscoelastic properties of the gelatin biopolymer and drive the formation of foams.