Key Laboratory of Molecular Nanostructure and Nanotechnology and Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100049, People's Republic of China.
J Am Chem Soc. 2016 May 11;138(18):5916-22. doi: 10.1021/jacs.6b00773. Epub 2016 May 2.
Hollow hybrid microspheres have found great potential in different areas, such as drug delivery, nanoreactors, photonics, and lithium-ion batteries. Here, we report a simple and scalable approach to construct high-quality hollow hybrid microspheres through a previously unexplored growth mechanism. Starting from uniform solid microspheres with low crystallinity, we identified that a hollowing process can happen through the progressive inward crystallization process initiated on the particle surface: the gradual encroachment of the crystallization frontline toward the core leads to the depletion of the center and forms the central cavity. We showed that such a synthetic platform was versatile and can be applicable for a large variety of materials. By using the production of Li4Ti5O12-carbon hollow hybrid microspheres as an example, we demonstrated that high-performance anode materials could be achieved through synthesis and structure control. We expect that our findings offer new perspectives in different areas ranging from materials chemistry, energy storage devices, catalysis, to drug delivery.
中空杂化微球在药物输送、纳米反应器、光子学和锂离子电池等不同领域具有巨大的潜力。在这里，我们报告了一种简单且可扩展的方法，通过以前未探索的生长机制构建高质量的中空杂化微球。从具有低结晶度的均匀固体微球开始，我们确定可以通过在颗粒表面上开始的渐进内结晶过程发生空心化过程：结晶前沿逐渐向核心推进，导致中心耗尽并形成中心腔。我们表明，这样的合成平台具有多功能性，可适用于各种材料。通过使用 Li4Ti5O12-碳中空杂化微球的生产为例，我们证明了通过合成和结构控制可以获得高性能的阳极材料。我们希望我们的发现为从材料化学、储能装置、催化到药物输送等不同领域提供新的视角。
