Polymer blend directed anisotropic self-assembly toward mesoporous inorganic bowls and nanosheets

Abstract

Anisotropic mesoporous inorganic materials have attracted great interest due to their unique and intriguing properties, yet their controllable synthesis still remains a great challenge. Here, we develop a simple synthesis approach toward mesoporous inorganic bowls and two-dimensional (2D) nanosheets by combining block copolymer (BCP)–directed self-assembly with asymmetric phase migration in ternary-phase blends. The homogeneous blend solution spontaneously self-assembles to anisotropically stacked hybrids as the solvent evaporates. Two minor phases—BCP/inorganic precursor and homopolystyrene (hPS)—form closely stacked, Janus domains that are dispersed/confined in the major homopoly(methyl methacrylate) (hPMMA) matrix. hPS phases are partially covered by BCP-rich phases, where ordered mesostructures develop. With increasing the relative amount of hPS, the anisotropic shape evolves from bowls to 2D nanosheets. Benefiting from the unique bowl-like morphology, the resulting transition metal oxides show promise as high-performance anodes in potassium-ion batteries.

Facile Synthesis of Two‐Dimensional Iron/Cobalt Metal–Organic Framework for Efficient Oxygen Evolution Electrocatalysis

“…Meanwhile,t he metal ions supported and protected by the organic framework can ensure along-term stability.However,bulk MOF with nanopores still suffer from poor conductivity and low mass permeability,w hich hamper their application in electrocatalysis.C ompared with bulk MOFs,t he two-dimensional (2D) MOF nanosheets with nanometer layers could possess ahigh electrocatalytic activity owing to many unsaturated coordination sites of metal ions on the surface,a sw ell as the rapid mass transport and charge transfer. [5][6][7][8][9][10] Especially,t he vacancies in the 2D ultrathin MOF nanosheets can increase the carrier concentration, thus leading to improved electrical conductivity. [11][12][13] Usually,the bottom-up method, via restricting the growth along the layer normal direction, is considered as an important means to produce 2D MOF nanosheets with ahigh yield and auniform thickness,ascompared to the top-bottom physical or chemical delamination of bulk crystals.…”

Graphene-Based Two-Dimensional Mesoporous Materials: Synthesis and Electrochemical Energy Storage Applications

“…Since the first report in 1992 [ 15 ], ordered mesoporous silicates (mSiO 2 ) have been the subject of intensive research and their synthesis protocols have been well-established in terms of controlling pore size, structures and morphologies [ 24 , 114 , 115 , 116 , 117 ]. Therefore, it is natural to first integrate mSiO 2 with G to prepare 2D mesoporous nanosheets.…”

Nanostructure Dependence of T‐Nb2O5 Intercalation Pseudocapacitance Probed Using Tunable Isomorphic Architectures

“…[13][14][15][16][17][18][19] A wide range of T-Nb 2 O 5 nanoscale architectures [20,21] have been investigated to date with most demonstrations including remarkable charge/ discharge rates. Materials architectures investigated to date include nanoparticles, [8,[22][23][24][25] nanotubes, [12,26,27] nanofibers, [28] nanorods, [29,30] nanowires, [6,31] nanosheets, [9,10,[32][33][34][35][36][37] nanocomposites, [38][39][40][41][42][43][44] and related nanostructures. [7,37,[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] Only few of the above works attempted a rational performance c...…”

“…Materials architectures investigated to date include nanoparticles, [8,[22][23][24][25] nanotubes, [12,26,27] nanofibers, [28] nanorods, [29,30] nanowires, [6,31] nanosheets, [9,10,[32][33][34][35][36][37] nanocomposites, [38][39][40][41][42][43][44] and related nanostructures. [7,37,[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] Only few of the above works attempted a rational performance comparison of different nanostructures. [23,[52][53][54] These studies relied on either the simultaneous variation of multiple spatial parameters or were based on single parameter architectures, thus obfuscating the study of nanostructure-property relationships.…”