Porous Lanthanide Metal-Organic Frameworks Using Pyridine-2,4-dicarboxylic Acid as a Linker: Structure, Gas Adsorption, and Luminescence Studies.

Two types of new lanthanide coordination networks, [Ln(pdc)(Hpdc)(HO)]·8HO [Hpdc = pyridine-2,4-dicarboxylic acid; Ln = Ce (), Pr (), Sm (), Eu (); type A) and [Tb(pdc)(Hpdc)]·3HO (type B), have been synthesized using a hydrothermal synthetic method. The former type A compound has an unfamiliar architecture, even basically comprised of primitive cubic (pcu) topology, and demonstrate porous gas adsorption behavior, giving several hundreds of square meters per gram surface areas after evacuation of the water molecules, while the latter type B compound does not show any porous properties. Most interestingly, the solvothermal synthetic method using ,-dimethylformamide (DMF) as a solvent gives compounds that crystallize in a structure analogous to that of type A for Ln = La-Ho, probably formulated as [Ln(pdc)(Hpdc)·(DMF)]·DMF.

Bio-inspired honeycomb-like graphitic carbon nitride for enhanced visible light photocatalytic CO reduction activity.

Graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) is paying attention lately owing to its interesting characteristics and substantial application in improving environmental and energy concerns. Nevertheless, the photocatalytic activity of g-CN is constrained by the inertness of the surface and particle aggregation during photocatalytic activity. Herein, we report the preparation of g-CN with honeycomb-like morphology (HC-CN) via thermal condensation of prepared SiO templates and dicyandiamide.

Rare-earth-free white emitting Ba2TiP2O9 phosphor: revealing its crystal structure and photoluminescence properties.

A high intensity bluish-white emitting Ba2TiP2O9 phosphor was synthesized by a conventional solid-state reaction method and the precise crystal structure was investigated for the first time by Rietveld refinement analysis. Ba2TiP2O9 has a monoclinic crystal structure with a space group C2/c (no. 15), which is built out of PO4 tetrahedra and TiO5 pyramidal polyhedra connected to form a chain structure along the c-axis.

Hydrothermal synthesis of meso/macroporous BiVO4 hierarchical particles and their photocatalytic degradation properties under visible light irradiation.

An ordered hierarchical meso/macroporous monoclinic bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) particle was fabricated for the first time by a simple two-step melamine template hydrothermal method followed by calcination. The physiochemical parameters of as-prepared porous materials were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, Raman, Barrett-Emmett-Teller, and UV-vis techniques. The nitrogen adsorption-desorption measurement and pore size distribution curve suggest that meso/macropores exist in these hierarchical microarchitectures.

Long phosphorescent Ca2SnO4 with minuscule rare earth dopant concentration.

Rare-earth doped Ca2SnO4 phosphors were synthesized using a conventional solid state reaction method. The red phosphorescence of Eu(3+) was observed in this system with persistence time. In the as-prepared samples, the doped rare earth ions occupied both Ca and Sn sites in the host lattice.

Redetermination of the low-temperature polymorph of Li(2)MnSiO(4) from single-crystal X-ray data.

Crystals of dilithium manganese(II) silicate were grown under high-temperature hydro-thermal conditions in the system LiOH-MnO(2)-SiO(2). The title compound crystallizes in the β(II)-Li(3)PO(4) structure type. The coordination polyhedra of all cations are slightly distorted tetra-hedra (m symmetry for MnO(4) and SiO(4)), which are linked by corner-sharing to each other.

Combinatorial synthesis of phosphors using arc-imaging furnace.

We have applied a novel 'melt synthesis technique' rather than a conventional solid-state reaction to rapidly synthesize phosphor materials. During a synthesis, the mixture of oxides or their precursors is melted by light pulses (10-60 s) in an arc-imaging furnace on a water-cooled copper hearth to form a globule of 1-5 mm diameter, which is then rapidly cooled by turning off the light. Using this method, we synthesized several phosphor compounds including YAlO:Ce(YAG) and SrAlO:Eu,Dy.