Eruption combustion synthesis of NiO/Ni nanocomposites with enhanced properties for dye-absorption and lithium storage.

Large-scale energy-efficient productions of oxide nanoparticles are of great importance in energy and environmental applications. In nature, volcano eruptions create large amounts of volcano ashes within a short duration. Inspired by such phenomena, we report herein our first attempt to achieve an artificial volcano for mass productions of various oxide nanoparticles with enhanced properties for energy and environmental applications. The introduction of NaF into the solution combustion synthesis (SCS), which is a generally adopted synthetic route for mass productions of various oxide nanoparticles, results in better particle dispersity and a drastic increase in specific surface area compared to the conventional SCS. In a fixed dosage of NaF, a new eruption combustion pattern emerges, which may be contributed to the more gas evolution, lower apparent density, and weaker interparticle force. The novel eruption combustion pattern observed in SCS provides a versatile alternative for SCS to control combustion behavior, microstructure, and property of the products. NiO/Ni nanocomposite yielded by the new approach shows an ideal dye-absorption ability as well as lithium storage capacity. The new SCS pattern reported in this paper is versatile, emerging in various systems of Ni-Co-O, Co-O, La-O, Ni-Co-O, Zn-Co-O, and La-Ni-O.