Three-Dimensional Assembly of Yttrium Oxide Nanosheets into Luminescent Aerogel Monoliths with Outstanding Adsorption Properties

The preparation of macroscopic materials from two-dimensional nanostructures represents a great challenge. Restacking and random aggregation to dense structures during processing prevents the preservation of the two-dimensional morphology of the nanobuilding blocks in the final body. Here we present a facile solution route to ultrathin, crystalline Y2O3 nanosheets, which can be assembled into a 3D network by a simple centrifugation-induced gelation method. The wet gels are converted into aerogel monoliths of macroscopic dimensions via supercritical drying. The as-prepared, fully crystalline Y2O3 aerogels show high surface areas of up to 445 m(2)/g and a very low density of 0.15 g/cm(3), which is only 3% of the bulk density of Y2O3. By doping and co-doping the Y2O3 nanosheets with Eu3+ and Tb3+, we successfully fabricated luminescent aerogel monoliths with tunable color emissions from red to green under UV excitation. Moreover, the as-prepared gels and aerogels exhibit excellent adsorption capacities for organic dyes in water without losing their structural integrity. For methyl blue we measured an unmatched adsorption capacity of 8080 mg/g. Finally, the deposition of gold nanoparticles on the nanosheets gave access to Y2O3-Au nanocomposite aerogels, proving that this approach may be used for the synthesis of catalytically active materials. The broad range of properties including low density, high porosity, and large surface area in combination with tunable photoluminescence makes these Y2O3 aerogels a truly multifunctional material with potential applications in optoelectronics, wastewater treatment, and catalysis.