PVA-assisted synthesis and characterization of core-shell Bi nanobelts

A facile large-scale hydrothermal process was proposed to synthesize core-shell nanobelts with single-crystalline Bi nanobelts as cores that may be resulted from the pseudolayered structure and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) as shells in which PVA chains reduced sodium bismuthate in mixed solution. The results have demonstrated that the formation of such Bi nanobelts is controlled by seed-mediated growth in an Ostwald ripening process, in which Bi nanostructures evolved through repetitive crystalline-amorphous transformations. In addition, STEM-EDS and HRTEM have confirmed that the shells of Bi nanobelts are indeed as same as the transparent amorphous Bi nanobelts composed of amorphous Bi and PVA.