Oxidative stabilization of polyacrylonitrile nanofibers and carbon nanofibers containing graphene oxide (GO): a spectroscopic and electrochemical study

• İlknur Gergin,
• Ezgi Ismar and
• A. Sezai Sarac

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1616–1628, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.161

• observe the topography of nanofibers. Oxidized PAN nanofibers formed with GO nanosheets can be seen in AFM image (Figure 9). The nanofibers have rough surfaces with flaky shapes attributed to GO. The morphology of GO is also shown in Figure 10a. Layers of GO can be seen in the SEM image. Also, some layer

• edges of GO and the interspaces of the layers can be observed in the SEM image. GO-containing electrospun nanofibers are seen in Figure 10b,c. GO nanosheets that are formed with PAN nanofibers are observed on the structure in Figure 10b. A rough surface with a kind of joints is presented in the image

Two-dimensional carbon-based nanocomposites for photocatalytic energy generation and environmental remediation applications

• Suneel Kumar,
• Ashish Kumar,
• Ashish Bahuguna,
• Vipul Sharma and
• Venkata Krishnan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1571–1600, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.159

• properties with unsaturated N-atoms for anchoring active sites [69]. Furthermore, the stacked 2D layered structure of g-C3N4 consists of single-layer nitrogen heteroatom-substituted graphite nanosheets, formed through sp2 hybridization of C and N atoms, and various layers are bound together by van der Waals

• [92]. Therefore, the preparation of exfoliated thin g-C3N4 nanosheets is becoming one of interesting areas for further exploration of the potential of g-C3N4 in various photocatalytic applications [65]. In addition to the thermal condensation method, there are also some other strategies reported for

• photocatalyst. The general mechanism for this reaction has been illustrated in Figure 7b. A similar binary nanocomposite has been reported by Xiang et al., which consists of graphene-modified TiO2 nanosheets [124]. This composite shows excellent H2 production rate of 736 µmol h−1 with 1 wt % of graphene content

Development of a nitrogen-doped 2D material for tribological applications in the boundary-lubrication regime

• Shende Rashmi Chandrabhan,
• Velayudhanpillai Jayan,
• Somendra Singh Parihar and
• Sundara Ramaprabhu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1476–1483, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.147

• carbon nanotubes and graphene oxide nanosheets as additives for water-based lubricants and found that graphene oxide nanosheets improved the tribological properties more than the carbon nanotubes [23]. Zhang et al. studied the tribological properties of an oil lubricant with oleic acid-modified graphene

Metal oxide nanostructures: preparation, characterization and functional applications as chemical sensors

• Dario Zappa,
• Angela Bertuna,
• Elisabetta Comini,
• Navpreet Kaur,
• Nicola Poli,
• Veronica Sberveglieri and
• Giorgio Sberveglieri

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1205–1217, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.122

• could be the higher dimensionality (3D) of these nanostructures compared to nanowires (1D), originating from the aggregation of 1D or 2D objects (such as nanowires, nanorods, nanosheets) occurring during the growth [26]. In particular, nanowires exhibit a very high surface-to-volume ratio, and have a

Enhanced catalytic activity without the use of an external light source using microwave-synthesized CuO nanopetals

• Govinda Lakhotiya,
• Sonal Bajaj,
• Arpan Kumar Nayak,
• Debabrata Pradhan,
• Pradip Tekade and
• Abhimanyu Rana

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1167–1173, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.118

• carbon monoxide (CO) [7][8][9]. CuO is one of the few p-type metal oxide semiconductors with a narrow band gap ≈1.24 eV [10]. The properties of CuO nanomaterials (nanoparticles, nanowires, nanosheets, etc.) are closely related to morphology and crystallite size [7]. These different nanoscale morphologies

Growth, structure and stability of sputter-deposited MoS₂ thin films

• Reinhard Kaindl,
• Bernhard C. Bayer,
• Roland Resel,
• Thomas Müller,
• Viera Skakalova,
• Gerlinde Habler,
• Rainer Abart,
• Alexey S. Cherevan,
• Dominik Eder,
• Maxime Blatter,
• Fabian Fischer,
• Jannik C. Meyer,
• Dmitry K. Polyushkin and
• Wolfgang Waldhauser

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1115–1126, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.113

• amorphous MoS2 films, deposited via simple electro-polymerization procedures, the precatalysts could be MoS3 or MoS2; the active form of the catalysts was identified as amorphous MoS2 [19]. Narrow molybdenum disulfide nanosheets with the edge-terminated structure and a significantly expanded interlayer were

Fully scalable one-pot method for the production of phosphonic graphene derivatives

• Kamila Żelechowska,
• Marta Prześniak-Welenc,
• Marcin Łapiński,
• Izabela Kondratowicz and
• Tadeusz Miruszewski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1094–1103, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.111

• phosphonate esters requires harsh conditions. In the phosphorylated GO nanosheets reported by Bai et al. the weight percentage of P was about 0.5% [5], which is unacceptably low taking into account the multi-step approach. According to Kim et al. in phosphorous-doped graphene obtained by ball-milling the

Synthesis of graphene–transition metal oxide hybrid nanoparticles and their application in various fields

• Arpita Jana,
• Elke Scheer and
• Sebastian Polarz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 688–714, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.74

• of the refractive index and interplay of photon and electron transport. Kumar Manga et al. have prepared multilayer thin films by a self-assembled layer-by-layer technique which consists of alternating titania (Ti0.91O2) and GO nanosheets. The layer materials are spatially phase segregated to

Role of RGO support and irradiation source on the photocatalytic activity of CdS–ZnO semiconductor nanostructures

• Suneel Kumar,
• Rahul Sharma,
• Vipul Sharma,
• Gurunarayanan Harith,
• Vaidyanathan Sivakumar and
• Venkata Krishnan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1684–1697, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.161

• nanostructures. Another unique aspect of this work is the formation of efficient binary and ternary heterojunctions having nanoparticles (NP), nanorods (NR) and nanosheets (NS), comprising of CdS, ZnO and RGO, respectively. In this work, , the preparation and detailed characterization of binary and ternary

Fracture behaviors of pre-cracked monolayer molybdenum disulfide: A molecular dynamics study

• Qi-lin Xiong,
• Zhen-huan Li and
• Xiao-geng Tian

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1411–1420, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.132

• experiments by using the tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM) and measured the elastic properties of freely suspended multi-layered MoS2 nanosheets (5 to 25 layers). Bertolazzi et al. [10] reported on measurements of the stiffness and breaking strength of monolayer MoS2, found the effective Young's modulus

Fast diffusion of silver in TiO₂ nanotube arrays

• Wanggang Zhang,
• Yiming Liu,
• Diaoyu Zhou,
• Hui Wang,
• Wei Liang and
• Fuqian Yang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1129–1140, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.105

• structures, including nanotubes, nanoparticles, nanorods, mesoporous spheres, nanosheets, nanowires have been synthesized via anodic oxidation, template, and hydrothermal processing to increase the ratio of surface area to volume for the maximization of effective surface area [17]. Among the low-dimensional

Hydration of magnesia cubes: a helium ion microscopy study

• Ruth Schwaiger,
• Johannes Schneider,
• Gilles R. Bourret and
• Oliver Diwald

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 302–309, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.28

• definition specific to the MgO cubes. Comparison of different regions within one sample before and after exposure to liquid water reveals different transformation processes, such as the formation of Mg(OH)2 shells that act as diffusion barriers for MgO dissolution or the evolution of brucite nanosheets

Green and energy-efficient methods for the production of metallic nanoparticles

• Mitra Naghdi,
• Mehrdad Taheran,
• Satinder K. Brar,
• M. Verma,
• R. Y. Surampalli and
• J. R. Valero

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2354–2376, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.243

• , shape and crystalline structure of Au NPs in a polymeric matrix are strongly influenced by the reaction temperature. At T = 100 °C and T = 20–50 °C, Au NPs had sizes of 18 and 27 nm, respectively, while at lower temperatures (4–10 °C), they observed anisotropic nanosheets of different shapes within the

• into solution to synthesize Ag nanosheets. They claimed that the in situ generated Al(OH)3 influenced the formation of Ag nanosheets. The produced nanosheets in 60 min reaction had a thickness of 20–30 nm [111]. Sun and Li produced colloidal carbon micro and nanospheres from glucose in a hydrothermal

• -isoprene moieties help stabilization of NPs [8]. Li et al. produced bimetallic Pd–Ag NPs from AgNO3, K2PdCl4 using graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets as reducing agent, support and stabilizer. The synthesis process took place at 84 °C for 3 h for reduction of metallic ions and 200 °C for 24 h for reduction of

From lithium to sodium: cell chemistry of room temperature sodium–air and sodium–sulfur batteries

• Philipp Adelhelm,
• Pascal Hartmann,
• Conrad L. Bender,
• Martin Busche,
• Christine Eufinger and
• Juergen Janek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1016–1055, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.105

• cell performed just like a typical lithium–oxygen battery, however, the discharge potentials were slightly lower (around 2.4 V), as expected. In 2013, the same group (Liu et al., [103]) used graphene nanosheets as cathode and NaPF6 dissolved in monoglyme as electrolyte. This way, discharge capacities

Effects of swift heavy ion irradiation on structural, optical and photocatalytic properties of ZnO–CuO nanocomposites prepared by carbothermal evaporation method

• Sini Kuriakose,
• D. K. Avasthi and
• Satyabrata Mohapatra

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 928–937, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.96

• absorption spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. XRD studies showed the presence of ZnO and CuO nanostructures in the nanocomposites. FESEM images revealed the presence of nanosheets and nanorods in the nanocomposites. The photocatalytic activity of ZnO–CuO nanocomposites was evaluated on the basis of

• nanocomposites. Keywords: nanocomposites; nanosheets; ion irradiation; photocatalysis; ZnO–CuO; Introduction Semiconductor nanocomposites have gained significant attention in the last few decades due to their widespread applications. Various physical and chemical methods such as carbothermal reduction [1

• and Discussion The FESEM images of pristine and irradiated nanocomposite samples are shown in Figure 1. The FESEM image of the pristine sample clearly illustrates the presence of a large number of nanosheets in addition to few nanorod-like structures, as shown in Figure 1a. It can be clearly seen that

Synthesis and characterization of fluorescence-labelled silica core-shell and noble metal-decorated ceria nanoparticles

• Rudolf Herrmann,
• Markus Rennhak and
• Armin Reller

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2413–2423, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.251

• is the formation of ceria nanosheets when cerium(III) nitrate was added to an aqueous reaction mixture over several hours, whereas NP were formed when the addition was rapid [59]. Although the platinum metal NP contained in the samples are seemingly unchanged although detached from ceria, they

Carbon-based smart nanomaterials in biomedicine and neuroengineering

• Antonina M. Monaco and
• Michele Giugliano

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1849–1863, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.196

• suitable for a broad variety of applications. The biocompatibility of graphene is, however, still disputed, given that very few studies are available and because several graphene forms can be employed (i.e., single or few layer, nanosheets, GO, r-GO) each with different chemical and physical properties

Fringe structures and tunable bandgap width of 2D boron nitride nanosheets

• Peter Feng,
• Muhammad Sajjad,
• Eric Yiming Li,
• Hongxin Zhang,
• Jin Chu,
• Ali Aldalbahi and
• Gerardo Morell

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1186–1192, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.130

• bandgap width of atomic-thin boron nitride nanosheets (BNNSs). BNNSs are synthesized by using digitally controlled pulse deposition techniques. The nanoscale morphologies of BNNSs are characterized by using scanning electron microscope (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). In general, the

• ]. Similar to the method used to produce graphene, BNNSs can be exfoliated from bulk BN crystals by simple mechanical cleavage techniques [3][4][5]. The problem is that the obtained hBN nanosheets are usually limited by too small size. Therefore, recently most work on synthesis of large BNNSs is based on

• either chemical-solution-derived method or a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. Many excellent results have been reported [6][7][8][9]. Systematic and comprehensive reviews of two-dimensional (2D) boron nitride nanostructures: nanosheets, nanoribbons, nanomeshes, and hybrids with graphene have been

Functionalized nanostructures for enhanced photocatalytic performance under solar light

• Liejin Guo,
• Dengwei Jing,
• Maochang Liu,
• Yubin Chen,
• Shaohua Shen,
• Jinwen Shi and
• Kai Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 994–1004, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.113

• microclusters with exposed {001} facets via a facile and surfactant-free hydrothermal reaction. The light absorption, charge separation and surface reaction were simultaneously optimized through the unique structure assembled from nanosheets, leading to the greatly enhanced photocatalytic activity [49]. Micro

• prepared flower like Ni-doped ZnIn2S4 with plenty of curved nanosheets using hydrothermal method, as shown in Figure 9. It was found that there existed an optimal Ni doping concentration, i.e., 0.3 wt %, for the highest hydrogen production efficiency. Only Ni ions occupying crystal lattice sites of ZnIn2S4

• nanosheets. Reprinted with permission from [61]. Copyright (2010), Springer. Illustration of twin-induced 1D long range ordered homojunctions over Cd0.5Zn0.5S with alternative zinc-blende (ZB) and wurtzite (WZ) segments. Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the

Optical modeling-assisted characterization of dye-sensitized solar cells using TiO₂ nanotube arrays as photoanodes

• Jung-Ho Yun,
• Il Ku Kim,
• Yun Hau Ng,
• Lianzhou Wang and
• Rose Amal

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 895–902, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.102

• structures and morphologies such as mesoporous TiO2, nanorods, nanotubes, nanosheets and hollow spheres have, therefore, been investigated to improve the performance of DSSCs by using various synthetic and modification methods [4][5][6][10][11]. Compared to the conventional DSSCs, which employ mesoporous

Biomolecule-assisted synthesis of carbon nitride and sulfur-doped carbon nitride heterojunction nanosheets: An efficient heterojunction photocatalyst for photoelectrochemical applications

• Hua Bing Tao,
• Hong Bin Yang,
• Jiazang Chen,
• Jianwei Miao and
• Bin Liu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 770–777, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.89

• -doped graphitic carbon nitride (CNS) nanosheets. During the synthesis, sulfur could be introduced as a dopant into the lattice of carbon nitride (CN). Sulfur doping changed the texture as well as relative band positions of CN. By growing CN on preformed sulfur-doped CN nanosheets, composite CN/CNS

• heterojunction nanosheets were constructed, which significantly enhanced the photoelectrochemical performance as compared with various control counterparts including CN, CNS and physically mixed CN and CNS (CN+CNS). The enhanced photoelectrochemical performance of CN/CNS heterojunction nanosheets could be

• ]. Herein, we employ a biomolecule-assisted (L-cysteine) pyrolysis method to synthesize sulfur-doped carbon nitride (CNS) nanosheets, which can serve as the framework to grow CN to form an all CN-based heterojunction composite. The formation of CN/CNS heterojunctions significantly improves the

Nanostructure sensitization of transition metal oxides for visible-light photocatalysis

• Hongjun Chen and
• Lianzhou Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 696–710, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.82

• tubular structure of TiO2 nanotubes and 2D layered titanate nanosheets were also used for the photosensitization. The CdS quantum dots photosensitized TiO2 nanotubes by covalent bonding [21] or a sonication-assisted sequential chemical bath deposition approach [31] led to a more efficient separation of

• . reported a layer-by-layer self-assembly between positively charged CdS quantum dots and negatively charged exfoliated titanate nanosheets to design noble-metal free photocatalysts. The resultant composites exhibited a much higher photocatalytic H2 production activity than pristine titanate and CdS quantum

• electron–hole pairs and further improve the photocatalytic ability [145]. The last feature is that an appreciable number of ion-exchangeable semiconductors can be exfoliated into single-layer two-dimensional (2D) nanosheets by the intercalation–exfoliation method, as shown in Figure 10. The thickness of

DNA origami deposition on native and passivated molybdenum disulfide substrates

• Xiaoning Zhang,
• Masudur Rahman,
• David Neff and
• Michael L. Norton

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 501–506, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.58

• energy harvesting applications [17]. Compared to conventional semiconductor materials such as silicon, MoS2 is readily processed as a prototypical nanomaterial. MoS2 nanosheets, nanofibers, and nanorods have been prepared [15], which means the material could readily be used to construct electronic

Structural, optical and photocatalytic properties of flower-like ZnO nanostructures prepared by a facile wet chemical method

• Sini Kuriakose,
• Neha Bhardwaj,
• Jaspal Singh,
• Biswarup Satpati and
• Satyabrata Mohapatra

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 763–770, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.87

• UV–vis absorption spectroscopy. SEM and TEM studies revealed flower-like structures consisting of nanosheets, formed due to oriented attachment of ZnO nanoparticles. Flower-like ZnO structures showed enhanced photocatalytic activity towards sun-light driven photodegradation of methylene blue dye (MB

• efficiency to photocatalytically degrade of MB. Keywords: ageing; nanoparticles; nanosheets; photocatalysis; ZnO; Introduction Water contamination due to hazardous water soluble organic dyes and chemicals poses a severe threat to the environment. The excess azo dyes in effluents from textile and dyeing

• nanosheets. These nanosheets were found to consist of nanoparticles and display a porous morphology. In addition to these flower-like structures, a large number of nanoparticles can also be seen. Mechanism of formation of flower-like ZnO structures On the basis of the FESEM results and earlier works on the

A facile approach to nanoarchitectured three-dimensional graphene-based Li–Mn–O composite as high-power cathodes for Li-ion batteries

• Wenyu Zhang,
• Yi Zeng,
• Chen Xu,
• Ni Xiao,
• Yiben Gao,
• Lain-Jong Li,
• Xiaodong Chen,
• Huey Hoon Hng and
• Qingyu Yan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 513–523, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.59

• as-prepared samples are shown in Figure 2. For the sample prepared with a MnSO4 molar concentration of 0.15 M, the SEM image (see Figure 2a) shows that the nanowalls are uniform and are attached onto the surface of the nanosheets. These nanowalls are mostly vertically aligned with respect to the

• surface of the nanosheets. The corresponding TEM image (see Figure 2b) reveals that these nanowalls are 3–5 nm in thickness and 25–30 nm in diameter. The high-resolution TEM (HRTEM) image (Figure 2c) and the selected-area electron diffraction pattern (Figure 2d) confirms the formation of the cubic Mn2O3