Morphology controlled synthesis of LiV 2 0 5 /Ag nanocomposite nanotubes with enhanced electrochemical performance{ Rahul S. Diggikar, ab Vishal M. Dhavale, c Dhanraj B. Shinde, c Nihal S. Kanbargi, d Milind V. Kulkarni b and Bharat B. Kale* b Received 13th December 2011, Accepted 9th February 2012 DOI: 10.1039/c2ra01289h Uniformly embedded silver (Ag) nanoparticles in orthorhom- bic nanotubes (NTs) of lithium vanadium oxide (LVO) synthesized via a facile template-free hydrothermal treatment at low temperature exhibited an excellent morphology with good crystallinity and may act as an exceptional contender for electronic applications. Polymorphic forms of lithium vanadium oxide (LVO) NTs, such as c, 1a a , b 1b d 1c and e 1d have distinctive properties and are now widely used in electronic applications. 2 The operating properties and applications of electronic devices depend not only on the oxidation state of vanadium, but also on its structure. So far, great efforts have been made in the field of synthesis of bulky or nanocrystalline LVO with different structural properties. However, due to the low conductivity, the efforts have not been highly successful. However, to the best of our knowledge, the synthesis of one dimensional (1D) nanostructures of silver–lithium vanadium oxide (LVO/Ag) nano- composites of different morphologies with the same crystallographic structures has not yet been reported for electronic applications. Moreover, 1D nanostructures are excellent for the efficient transport of electrons. 3 Recently, the 1D silver–vanadium oxide (SVO) nanowires showed excellent applications in electrochromic devices (ECDs) synthesized at higher temperatures with high conductivity. 4,5 1D nanostructure appears to be an exciting field of research and could showcase great potential in addressing the problem of the space-confined transport phenomenon. The key to preparing 1D nanostructures lies in the way in which atoms or other building blocks are rationally assembled into a structure with nanometer sizes but are much larger in length under properly controlled conditions. This means that the formation of 1D nanostructures is thermo- dynamically preferable for many substances under certain condi- tions. 3 Since, LVO is well known for its electronic applications; we have attempted the facile synthesis of the 1D nanostructured LVO/ Ag nanocomposite. In this communication, a controlled low-temperature hydrother- mal method has been developed for the synthesis of a LVO/silver (Ag) 1D nanostructure by using LiNO 3 , AgNO 3 and NH 4 VO 3 at lower temperatures. Scheme 1 elucidates the intercalation of silver in the layers of LVO. The LVO NTs possess an orthorhombic structure (Fig. 1).The structure contains corrugated sheets that are orthogonal to the x-axis and parallel to the tubes direction, which is the y-axis direction. Because the length of the NTs determines the lateral dimensions of the sheet, the observed actuation must be produced by changes in the y-axis length. In a typical reaction, LVO/Ag NTs were prepared by the hydrothermal polycondensation of ammonium metavanadate (Aldrich) and reduction of AgNO 3 in an autoclave where 0.3 g of ammonium metavanadate (A) was dissolved in 30 ml of deionized (DI) water containing 2 ml of 1 M HNO 3 . This mixture was stirred at room temperature for 7 h, then 40 mg of lithium nitrate (C) and 1.1 g of AgNO 3 (B) were added. After stirring for 1 h, the mixture was transferred to a 50 ml Teflon-lined autoclave and treated at 80 uC for 24 h. The resulting precipitate was dispersed in 50 ml of DI water with vigorous stirring. The product was suction-filtered and a P.G.Department of Chemistry, New Arts, Commerce and Science College, Parner, District- Ahmednagar, INDIA b Centre For Materials For Electronics Technology (C-MET), Off Pashan Road, Pune, India. E-mail: bbkale@cmet.gov.in c Physical and Materials Chemistry Division, National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India d Polymer Chemistry Division, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorke, India { Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: S1, S2, S3, S4. See DOI: 10.1039/c2ra01289h Scheme 1 Staging of silver nanoparticles in NTs of LVO. 1b RSC Advances Dynamic Article Links Cite this: RSC Advances, 2012, 2, 3231–3233 www.rsc.org/advances COMMUNICATION This journal is ß The Royal Society of Chemistry 2012 RSC Adv., 2012, 2, 3231–3233 | 3231 Published on 07 March 2012. Downloaded on 31/10/2014 08:01:02. View Article Online / Journal Homepage / Table of Contents for this issue