The effect of Mg(2+) on hydrothermal formation of α-CaSO4·0.5H2O whiskers with high aspect ratios was investigated in this paper. α-CaSO4·0.5H2O whiskers with a preferential growth along the c axis and an average aspect ratio up to 370 were synthesized using hydrothermal treatment of CaSO4·2H2O precursor in the presence of 1.97 × 10(-3) mol·L(-1) MgCl2. The preferential adsorption of Mg(2+) on the negative (200), (400), and (020) facets was confirmed by EDS, XPS, and zeta potential measurements. ATR-FTIR analysis revealed the ligand adsorption of Mg(2+) on the surface of α-CaSO4·0.5H2O. The doping of Mg(2+) in α-CaSO4·0.5H2O whiskers was confirmed by the XRD analysis. The experimental results indicated that the adsorption and doping of Mg(2+) promoted the 1-D growth of α-CaSO4·0.5H2O whiskers, leading to the formation of whiskers with high aspect ratios.

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ZnO hierarchical structures assembled by tunable nanoscale building blocks such as nanorods, nanosheets and nanoparticles were synthesized from dilution-induced supersaturated solutions.

This paper reports the zinc interstitial-induced room temperature ferromagnetism (RT-FM) in undoped ZnO nanorods synthesized by aging ε-Zn(OH)2 precursor in 0–2 mol·L–1 NaOH at 80 °C for 10.0 h. The variations of the defect states and ferromagnetism of the ZnO nanorods with NaOH concentration were investigated by X-ray diffraction, Raman scattering, photoluminescence, electron spin resonance, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and superconducting quantum interference device so as to identify the origin of RT-FM. The experimental results revealed that the increase of the NaOH concentration led to the increase of the oxygen-related defects but the decrease of the zinc interstitials in association with the magnetization value. A direct correlation between the ferromagnetism and the relative concentration of the zinc interstitials was established, which indicated that the zinc interstitials may play an important role in mediating the RT-FM in the undoped ZnO nanorods.

Nanomaterials have shown tremendous potentials to impact the broad field of biological sensing. Nanomaterials, with extremely small sizes and appropriate surface modifications, allow intimate interaction with target biomolecules. [...]