Solvothermal synthesis of necklace-like carbon nanotube/ceria composites

The necklace-like carbon nanotube (CNT)/ceria composites have been synthesized by a simple solvothermal method. The composites are characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction as well as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. It is found that the necklace-like nanostructures are a hybrid of face-centered cubic ceria and CNTs, and these beaded ceria particles with a diameter of 80120 nm are distributed discontinuously along the axis of CNTs. A possible formation mechanism has been suggested to explain the formation of necklace-like CNT/ceria composites, which indicates that this synthesis route is promising and may be extended to fabricate other beaded nanoparticles along CNTs. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.