Synthesis of silicon hollow nanospheres with a mesoporous shell via a low-temperature metathesis reaction

Over the past years significant focus has been given on fabricating nanomaterials with unique shapes and structures. This article presents a new configuration for Si nanoparticles that have a hollow structure, whose shell contains mesopores. These structures were obtained through a simple chemical method by using SiCl4 with Zn as the reactant and solvent. The coupling effects between the buoyancy, surface tension, and diffusion of ZnCl2 are responsible for the formation of the hollow structures, with a high production rate and quality. Characterization of the resulting powders, through X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy, illustrated that the diameter of the hollow Si nanospheres ranged from 150 nm to 300 nm, while nitrogen adsorption and density functional theory calculations indicated that their surface area was 193.498 m2/g and mesopores 2-4 nm in diameter existed in their shell.