A general approach for synthesis of a family of functional inorganic nanotubes using highly active carbonaceous nanofibres as templates

A family of functional metal oxide nanotubes such as TiO2, Fe2O3, SnO2, ZrO2, and SnO2@Fe2O3 composite can be successfully fabricated by using highly active carbonaceous nanofibres as templates, which are synthesized via a hydrothermal approach. Compared with the previous strategy of using carbon nanotubes as templates, the carbonaceous nanofibres synthesized by the hydrothermal approach have higher reactivity, thus making them more suitable for templating synthesis of a variety of metal oxide nanotubes. This general method can be further developed to synthesize uniform ternary oxide nanotubes such as BaTiO3 and metal oxide composite nanotubes. The gas sensitivity of SnO2 nanotubes synthesized by this approach has showed higher sensitivity, which exemplifies the distinct properties of such 1D hollow nanostructures. These uniform nanotubes might find potential applications in fields such as catalysis, chemical/biological separation, and sensing.