Synthesis and Applications of Mixed Oxide Nanotubes

Abstract

Metal oxide nanotube is one of the nanostructured materials. Templates method, which is the technique in which templates are covered with metal oxides and the templates were removed to form metal oxide nanotubes, is a typical synthesis method for metal oxide nanotubes. In this section, synthesis of mixed oxide nanotubes using carbon nanofibers (CNFs) as templates is described. Because CNFs with various shapes were used as templates, oxide nanotubes with various shapes such as straight and helical were formed. Successive adsorption of metal oxide precursors on CNFs resulted in the formation of mixed oxide nanotubes with specific composition. In addition, a nano-macrostructured material, silica fiber-immobilized nanofibrous LaMnO3, was fabricated using this template process. In propane oxidation, the nano-macrostructured material showed superior activity to the conventional powder catalysts.