Aqueous synthesis of mesostructured BiVO4 quantum tubes with excellent dual response to visible light and temperature

Abstract

Analysis of the atomic structure of monoclinic BiVO 4 reveals its fascinating structure-related dual response to visible light and temperature. Although there have been a few reported studies of its responses to visible light and temperature, an understanding of the effects of quantum size, particle shape or specific exposed facets on its dual responsive properties remains elusive; this is primarily due to the limited availability of high-quality monodisperse nanocrystals with extremely small sizes and specific exposed facets. Herein, we describe a novel assembly-fusion strategy for the synthesis of mesostructured monoclinic BiVO 4 quantum tubes with ultranarrow diameter of 5 nm, ultrathin wall thickness down to 1 nm and exposed {020} facets, via a convenient hydrothermal method at temperatures as low as 100 °C . Notably, the resulting high-quality quantum tubes possess significantly superior dual-responsive properties compared with bulk BiVO 4 or even BiVO 4 nanoellipsoids, and thus, show high promise for applications as visible-light photocatalysts and temperature indicators offering improved environmental quality and safety. This mild and facile methodology should be capable of extension to the preparation of other mesostructured inorganic quantum tubes with similar characteristics, giving a range of materials with enhanced dual-responsive properties.

Pits confined in ultrathin cerium(IV) oxide for studying catalytic centers in carbon monoxide oxidation

“…S1, the successful synthesis of ultrathin CeO 2 sheets took advantage of an intermediate precursor of ultrathin CeCO 3 OH sheets. During the formation of this precursor, the peculiar arrangement of oleate ions around the surface of Ce 3 þ played a vital role: Ce 3 þ initially interacted with oleate ions to form Ce-oleate complexes via an electrostatic interaction and hence assembled into atomically thin two-dimensional structure driven by the hydrophobic effect of oleate tails 35 . After addition of NH 3 Á H 2 O followed by hydrothermal treatment for 48 h, the ultrathin CeCO 3 OH sheets were obtained and fully characterized in Supplementary Fig.…”

Fabrication of flexible and freestanding zinc chalcogenide single layers

“…Also, according to the diffusion formula of t = d 2 /k 2 D (d is the particle size, k is a constant, D is the diffusion coefficient of electron-hole pairs) 26 , their unique electronic structure (Fig. 2c) associated with atomically ultrathin thickness and high (110)-orientation could endow them with unusual electronic properties including higher carrier mobility and better grain boundary connectivity 27,28 , verified by their corresponding charge transfer resistance in Fig. 3d.…”

Fabrication of BiVO4 nanoplates with active facets on graphene sheets for visible-light photocatalyst

“…[6] Efforts have been devoted to improve the photocatalytic activity of BiVO 4 by using nano-sized particles, [7] or obtaining hetero-junction structure, [8,9] or loading co-catalysts, [4,6,10] doping, [11,12] as well as controlling morphology. [13][14][15] ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 3 Coupling with graphene has been considered as a promising method to meet these challenges. [16][17][18][19] Graphene could enhance the transport of photo-generated electrons and holes in semiconductor particles, owing to the abundance of delocalized electrons from the conjugated sp 2 -bonded carbon network.…”