Amorphous nanosheets created using hard-to-synthesize metal oxides and oxyhydroxides

Phys.org  October 21, 2024
Amorphous 2D nanosheets have unique properties that are distinct from crystalline 2D nanosheets. However, compared with the vast library of crystalline 2D nanosheets, amorphous 2D nanosheets lack an efficient synthetic approach. Researchers in Japan developed a strategy that yields a library of 10 distinct amorphous 2D metal oxides/oxyhydroxides using solid-state surfactant crystals. A key feature of this process was a stepwise reaction using solid surfactant. The solid-state surfactant crystals have metal ions arranged in the interlayer space, and hydrolysis of the metal ions leads to the formation of isolated clusters in the surfactant crystals via limited condensation reactions. Immersing the surfactant crystals in formamide promoted nanosheet formation through the self-assembly of clusters by templating the morphologies of the crystals generated from surfactants crystals. According to the researchers their approach opens a flatland in amorphous 2D world… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE 

Illustration of the synthesis process for molecularly thin amorphous 2D nanosheets. Credit: Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 6612, 4 August 2024

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