Facile Synthesis of Urchin-Like Selenium Nanostructures in a Buffer System at Ambient Conditions

Abstract

A kind of interesting urchin-like selenium nanostructure consisting of Se nanorods with a diameter of ∼100 nm and a length of 4−5 μm was synthesized based on a facile dismutation reaction in a buffer system at ambient conditions. In the synthesis process, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) was used as a shape-directing agent. It is found that the reaction time, the buffer system, and the amount of ethanol have an important influence on the formation of this kind of morphology besides CTAB. The obtained samples were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The formation mechanism of the urchin-like Se nanostructure has been proposed.

Formation of In2O3 Microrods in Thermal Treated InSe Single Crystal

“…Low-dimensional elongated semiconductor structures such as wires, tubes, or rods have attracted a large amount of interest in the past decade due to their potential applications in future optical and electronic micro- and nanodevices. Various inorganic elongate materials such as oxides, − sulfides, − and nitrides as well as elemental materials , have been fabricated. Indium oxide (In 2 O 3 ) is a material of particular interest for fundamental research and various device applications.…”

Nanostructures with Animal-like Shapes

“…70 A type of interesting urchinlike selenium nanostructure, consisting of Se-nanorods with diameter ≈ 100 nm and length ) 4-5 µm, was synthesized based on a dismutation reaction in a buffer system at ambient conditions using CTAB as a shape-directing agent. 71 Among nanourchin structures, the metal oxides are the most common, especially vanadium oxides (VO x ) 72,73 (Figure 22). They possess spherical structures, composed of a radially oriented array of VO x nanotubes (VO x -NTs) and vanadium oxide nanorods (VO x -NRDs).…”

“…The Mg/air batteries made from vapor-deposited Mg structures, especially batteries made from sea urchin-like Mg-nanostructures, displayed superior electrochemical properties compared to those of the various existing power sources . A type of interesting urchinlike selenium nanostructure, consisting of Se-nanorods with diameter ≈ 100 nm and length = 4−5 μm, was synthesized based on a dismutation reaction in a buffer system at ambient conditions using CTAB as a shape-directing agent …”

Fabrication of hierarchical β-Co(OH)2 microspheres via hydrothermal process

“…To date, many self-assembly processes driven by chemical or physical principles have been developed to organize hierarchical structures. For example, 3D aperiodic hierarchical porous graphitic carbon materials have been synthesized and used for electrode materials in electrochemical capacitors (ECs) with good performances (Wang et al 2008), ZnO hollow spheres have been successfully prepared (Chen and Gao 2008), Se nanostructures with sea urchin shapes were synthesized by a sodium dodecyl sulfate-assisted hydrothermal process (Fan et al 2009), Ni(OH) 2 with threedimensional nanostructures were prepared in a waterin-oil reverse micelle/microemulsion system (Cao et al 2007), etc.…”