• Title/Summary/Keyword: Hollow nanospheres

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Versatile Strategies for Fabricating Polymer Nanomaterials with Controlled Size and Morphology

  • Yoon, Hyeon-Seok;Choi, Moon-Jung;Lee, Kyung-Jin;Jang, Jyong-Sik
    • Macromolecular Research
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    • v.16 no.2
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    • pp.85-102
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    • 2008
  • The development of reliable synthetic routes to polymer nanomaterials with well-defined size and morphology is a critical research topic in contemporary materials science. The ability to generate nanometer-sized polymer materials can offer unprecedented, interesting insights into the physical and chemical properties of the corresponding materials. In addition, control over shape and geometry of polymer nanoparticles affords versatile polymer nanostructures, encompassing nanospheres, core-shell nanoparticles, hollow nanoparticles, nanorods/fibers, nanotubes, and nanoporous materials. This review summarizes a diverse range of synthetic methods (broadly, hard template synthesis, soft template synthesis, and template-free synthesis) for fabricating polymer nanomaterials. The basic concepts and significant issues with respect to the synthetic strategies and tools are briefly introduced, and the examples of some of the outstanding research are highlighted. Our aim is to present a comprehensive review of research activities that concentrate on fabrication of various kinds of polymer nanoparticles.

Fabrication and Catalysis of $SiO_2$-Coated Ag@Au Nanoboxes

  • Lee, Jae-Won;Jang, Du-Jeon
    • Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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    • 2013.02a
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    • pp.588-588
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    • 2013
  • Nanoscale noble-metals have attracted enormous attention from researchers in various fields of study because of their unusual optical properties as well as novel chemical properties. They have possible uses in diverse applications such as devices, transistors, optoelectronics, information storages, and energy converters. It is well-known that nanoparticles of noble-metals such as silver and gold show strong absorption bands in the visible region due to their surface-plasmon oscillation modes of conductive electrons. Silver nanocubes stand out from various types of Silver nanostructures (e.g., spheres, rods, bars, belts, and wires) due to their superior performance in a range of applications involvinglocalized surface plasmon resonance, surface-enhanced Raman scattering, and biosensing. In addition, extensive efforts have been devoted to the investigation of Gold-based nanocomposites to achieve high catalytic performances and utilization efficiencies. Furthermore, as the catalytic reactivity of Silver nanostructures depends highly on their morphology, hollow Gold nanoparticles having void interiors may offer additional catalytic advantages due to their increased surface areas. Especially, hollow nanospheres possess structurally tunable features such as shell thickness, interior cavity size, and chemical composition, leading to relatively high surface areas, low densities, and reduced costs compared with their solid counterparts. Thus, hollow-structured noblemetal nanoparticles can be applied to nanometer-sized chemical reactors, efficient catalysts, energy-storage media, and small containers to encapsulate multi-functional active materials. Silver nanocubes dispersed in water have been transformed into Ag@Au nanoboxes, which show highly enhanced catalytic properties, by adding $HAuCl_4$. By using this concept, $SiO_2$-coated Ag@Au nanoboxes have been synthesized via galvanic replacement of $SiO_2$-coated Ag nanocubes. They have lower catalytic ability but more stability than Ag@Au nanoboxes do. Thus, they could be recycled. $SiO_2$-coated Ag@Au nanoboxes have been found to catalyze the degradation of 4-nitrophenol efficiently in the presence of $NaBH_4$. By changing the amount of the added noble metal salt to control the molar ratio Au to Ag, we could tune the catalytic properties of the nanostructures in the reduction of the dyes. The catalytic ability of $SiO_2$-coated Ag@Au nanoboxes has been found to be much more efficient than $SiO_2$-coated Ag nanocubes. Catalytic performances were affected noteworthily by the metals, sizes, and shapes of noble-metal nanostructures.

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Synthesis of Core/Shell Graphene/Semiconductor Nanostructures for Lithium Ion Battery Anodes

  • Sin, Yong-Seung;Jang, Hyeon-Sik;Im, Jae-Yeong;Im, Se-Yun;Lee, Jong-Un;Lee, Jae-Hyeon;Wang, Junyi;Heo, Geun;Kim, Tae-Geun;Hwang, Seong-U;Hwang, Dong-Mok
    • Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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    • 2013.08a
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    • pp.288-288
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    • 2013
  • Lithium-ion battery (LIB) is one of the most important rechargeable battery and portable energy storage for the electric digital devices. In particular, study about the higher energy capacity and longer cycle life is intensively studied because of applications in mobile electronics and electric vehicles. Generally, the LIB's capacity can be improved by replacing anode materials with high capacitance. The graphite, common anode materials, has a good cyclability but shows limitations of capacity (~374 mAh/g). On the contrary, silicon (Si) and germanium(Ge), which is same group elements, are promising candidate for high-performance LIB electrodes because it has a higher theoretical specific capacity. (Si:4200 mAh/g, Ge:1600 mAh/g) However, it is well known that Si volume change by 400% upon full lithiation (lithium insertion into Si), which result in a mechanical pulverization and poor capacity retention during cycling. Therefore, variety of nanostructure group IV elements, including nanoparticles, nanowires, and hollow nanospheres, can be promising solution about the critical issues associated with the large volume change. However, the fundamental research about correlation between the composition and structure for LIB anode is not studied yet. Herein, we successfully synthesized various structure of nanowire such as Si-Ge, Ge-Carbon and Si-graphene core-shell types and analyzed the properties of LIB. Nanowires (NWs) were grown on stainless steel substrates using Au catalyst via VLS (Vapor Liquid Solid) mechanism. And, core-shell NWs were grown by VS (Vapor-Solid) process on the surface of NWs. In order to characterize it, we used FE-SEM, HR-TEM, and Raman spectroscopy. We measured battery property of various nanostructures for checking the capacity and cyclability by cell-tester.

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