Ni(OH)2-Polyoxometalate Cluster Hybrid Superstructures

It remains a great challenge to develop a general and facile strategy to rationally design and control the structure and morphology of materials at the sub-1 nm scale. Herein, various dimensional sub-1 nm hybrid nanomaterials (including nanowires, nanobelts, and fiber structures) were synthesized by incorporating three types of molybdenum-based polyoxometalate (POM) clusters within the Ni(OH)2 reaction system at the nucleation stage, where the inorganic nuclei were successfully limited to the sub-1 nm scale and co-assembled with POM to form the co-assembly of POM and Ni(OH)2, which continued to grow as building blocks into different dimensional hybrid nanomaterials with sub-1 nm architectures. It was also demonstrated by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Furthermore, because of the synergetic effect of POM clusters and Ni(OH)2, these obtained materials not only exhibited high catalytic activity in gasoline desulfurization at room temperature (RT) but also displayed excellent electrocatalytic activity in the reduction of hydrogen peroxide; thus, these materials could be promising hydrogen peroxide amperometric sensors.