Synthesis of hierarchical tree-like and jellyfish-like silicon oxide nanostructures

Hierarchical tree-like and jellyfish-like SiOx nanostructures have been synthesized by annealing a mixture of carbon coated Ni nanoparticles (Ni@C) and SiO2 powers under argon atmosphere at 1400 degrees C. The synthesized products were characterized by electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The tree-like SiOx nanostructures consisting of the trunks and many branches and subbranches with diminishing diameters have been observed for the first time. The diameters of the trunks are about 150-1000 nm, and the branches become more slender for each branching, ultimately to 20-40 nm in diameter for the ends. The jellyfish-like SiOx nanostructures are constructed by the catalyst heads with sizes of about 1-10 microm and many connected quasi-aligned SiOx nanowires with diameters about 20-40 nm. The Ni species of the Ni@C nanoparticles acts as the catalyst and the surface carbon as the reducing agent for carbothermal reduction of SiO2. The experimental results suggest that the formation of different SiOx nanostructures mainly depend on the dimensions of the congregated Ni catalyst droplets during the reaction process and the growth mechanism is reasonably discussed.