Tailoring the shape of amorphous nanomaterials: recent developments and applications

Abstract

Nanoscale amorphous materials are very important member of the non-crystalline solids family and have emerged as a new category of advanced materials. However, morphological control of amorphous nanomaterials is very difficult because of the atomic isotropy of their internal structures. In this review, we introduce some emerging innovative methods to fabricate well-defined, regular-shaped amorphous nanomaterials. We then highlight some examples to evaluate the use of these amorphous materials in electrodes, and their optical response. There is still plenty of room to explore the amorphous world. As researchers continue to advance the scientific tools that underpin the concepts related to "amorphous", additional applications of these materials will emerge. Their controlled synthesis will undoubtedly attain new heights in the discipline of nanomaterials, and allow nanoscale amorphous materials to become more sophisticated, diverse, and mainstream.

Novel synthesis of V2O5 hollow microspheres for lithium ion batteries

“…3f) also confirms the good crystallinity of the obtained V 2 O 5 hollow microspheres. It is worth mentioning that the formation of V 2 O 5 hollow microspheres reported in this work is quite different from the previously reported synthesis strategy [26], such as Ostwald-ripening mechanisms [13] and template-assisted synthesis [20]. The formation of the hollow microsphere can be attributed to the volume contraction of the solid spheres after removing the organic species during the calcination process in air.…”

“…However, the low diffusion coefficient of lithium ions (10 −12 to 10 −13 cm 2 s −1 ) [6] and low electronic conductivity (10 −2 to 10 −3 S cm −1 ) [7] impede its electrochemical performance. Recently, nanomaterials are effective to improve their electrochemical performance because of the kinetic enhancement for Li + ions diffusion and electron transportation [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. To date, various V 2 O 5 nanostructures, such as nanofibers [16,17], nanowires [18] and hierarchical microspheres [19][20][21][22] have been reported with improved electrochemical properties.…”

Hollow Structures Based on Prussian Blue and Its Analogs for Electrochemical Energy Storage and Conversion

“…[118] iii) Apart from the emulsions and PB/PBA cubes, different templates should be employed to extend the synthetic methodology and morphological diversity of the products. i) The elemental variety within the PBA templates needs to be expanded to provide more application opportunities, for example, Ti for a rechargeable battery, and V and Mo for OER and HER, respectively.…”

The Flexibility of an Amorphous Cobalt Hydroxide Nanomaterial Promotes the Electrocatalysis of Oxygen Evolution Reaction

“…[12,21,22] In contrast to crystalline solids, amorphous materials are characterized by disordered long-range atomic arrangement, metastable structure, and accommodating inherent abundant defects. [23] These characters endow amorphous materials with "soft" and flexible properties, [24,25] especially when it comes to the micro-or nanoscale size. [26][27][28] In the last decade, since Kanan and Nocera sparked much interest in the topic of amorphous OER catalysts, [8] increasing amorphous materials have emerged as efficient catalysts.…”