Green Nanostructure Synthesis

We have also embarked on developing innovative syntheses of nanotubular, nanorod, and nanocube formulations of oxide (particularly, technologically significant perovskites) and fluoride materials. This work is summarized in invited contributions including Chem Commun., v. 46, 8093 (2010), Chem. Commun., 4598 (2005), and Small, v.3, 1122 (2007). Specifically, we have implemented viable environmentally friendly synthetic methodologies in the fabrication of a range of ternary/binary metal oxides, titanates, fluorides, tungstates, zirconates, and ferrites. In fact, most of our processes run under either ambient conditions or low temperatures, and can be efficiently scaled up. Moreover, our simple protocols are generally cost-effective; use mainly nontoxic precursors; limit the numbers of reagents and reaction steps; minimize waste, reagent use, and power consumption; and involve the development of high-yield processes with an absence of volatile and toxic byproducts.

In particular, we have made important advances in the use of molten-salt synthetic methods, hydrothermal protocols, and ambient template-directed techniques as green, cost-effective methodologies to generate monodisperse nanostructures with precise size and shape control without sacrificing on sample quality, purity, and crystallinity. Our as-prepared nanomaterials maintain fundamentally interesting size-dependent electronic, optical, and magnetic properties. In terms of applications, these nanostructures have wide-ranging utility in areas as diverse as catalysis, energy storage, fuel cells, biomedicine, computation, power generation, photonics, remediation, and sensing.