Interface-mediated fabrication of bowl-like and deflated ballon-like hollow carbon nanospheres

In our work, two kinds of hollow carbon nanospheres with controlled morphologies have been successfully prepared from low-cost and nontoxic glucose as the sole carbon precursor under neutral aqueous medium via a simple hydrothermal route. During the process, sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate (SDBS) and triblock copolymer P123 ((EO)20(PO)70(EO)20) was skillfully selected as the structure-directing agent, respectively. SEM, TEM and AFM results revealed that the two products showed bowl-like and deflated-balloon-like morphology with uniform particle sizes, respectively. Based on the experimental observations, a possible formation mechanism was also discussed, in which the growth of the carbon nanospheres involved an interface-medicated assembly process. The present method was easy, green and mild. Apart from the unique nanostructure, the obtained bowl-like hollow carbon nanospheres exhibited excellent biocompatibility. In particular, it should be mentioned that the open window formed by the bowl-like morphology can facilitate ion transport, thus improving their performances.