Rationally synthetic strategy from nickel to nickel oxide hydroxide nanosheets nanorolls

We demonstrate here that single-crystal beta-Ni(OH)(2) nanosheets can be selectively synthesized in large quantities through a facile hydrothermal synthetic method using aqueous nickel nitrate as the nickel source and sodium hydroxide as alkaline reagent. This attempt is based on the treatment of aqueous nickel nitrate with high concentrations of sodium hydroxide solution under hydrothermal condition. Single-crystal NiO nanorolls can be obtained via a thermal decomposition method using single-crystal beta-Ni(OH)(2) nanosheets as the precursor. The influences of alkaline concentration and reaction temperature are carefully investigated in this paper. The morphologies and phase structures of the as-prepared products are investigated in detail by x-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and selected area electron diffraction (SAED). The probable formation mechanism of the NiO nanorolls is proposed on the basis of the experimental results.