Layered Lanthanide Hydroxides Nanowires: Synthesis, Characterization And Their Properties

Hydroxide-based layered compounds are of great importance in theoretic research and practical application due to their structures and unique optical, electrical and magnetic properties. The main challenge in this area is how to controlled synthesize layered compounds with different regular morphologies, structures and compositions in nanoscale, which may play a key role in investigation on the relationship between morphology of materials and their properties, and serve as building blocks for the further assembly and fabrication of functional nanostructures. Owing to unique electrical, optical, and magnetic properties of one-dimensional nanomaterials, in this dissertation, valuable investigations have been carried out on the synthesis of layered rare earth compounds nanowires(NWs) as well as their properties.A template-free solvothermal synthetic strategy has been developed to prepare layered hydroxide lanthanum acetate (LHL-acetate) crystalline porous NWs, with the use of ethanol and water as mixed solvent. The diameter of NWs can be controlled by tuning the synthetic conditions. Luminescence can be introduced by doping the LHL-acetate with Eu3+. By combining the merits of hierarchical porous nanowires and layered double hydroxides (LDH), these as-synthesized products have shown a unique bioengineering applications of capturing and releasing short DNA fragments rapidly in dilute solution, and environmental engineering applications such as their remarkable capability to remove organic dye from water.The ethanol-water solvothermal method has been extended to the synthesis of a family layered lanthanide hydroxide nanowires (Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, and Gd). Photoluminescence of Eu-based layered hydroxide NWs as well as the effects of hydrothermal temperature and time for the transition of layered structure have been studied. These layered lanthanide hydroxide nanowires combine the advantages of lanthanide and layered hydroxides, which can be expected to be used as building blocks for further fabrication of functional nanostructures.