Hollow Nanostructures

Hollow nanostructures distinguish themselves by not only structural beauty, but also, more importantly, a series of intriguing physicochemical properties, including low density, large surface area, high loading capacity, and reduced length scales for both mass and charge transport. These fascinating features endow them with broad applications in energy, sensors, catalysis, and biomedical areas, etc. Constructing materials with a hollow nanostructure is considered to be a potential route to address global challenges in sustainability, healthcare, and technology in a practical way. International conferences, such as the 1st International Symposium on Hollow Nanostructured Materials (2017), the 642nd Xiangshan Science Conference on Multi-Shelled Hollow Nanostructured Materials (2018), and the 2nd International Symposium on Hollow Nanostructured Materials (August 2019) have concluded that the key points for developing hollow nanostructured materials include the ability to precisely control the assembly/synthesis of the structures, their internal voids, their surface functionality, and their degree of crystallinity. This special issue contains articles which provide a comprehensive overview of the development of hollow nanostructured materials and the latest innovations. Leading researchers from institutions including Jilin University, Fudan University, Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore, Stanford University, Tsinghua University, Temple University, the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, the University of Adelaide, University of Science & Technology Beijing, the University of Queensland, University of Science and Technology of China, University of California-Riverside, Institute of Chemistry-CAS and the Institute of Process Engineering-CAS have contributed. The articles cover the latest achievements in the preparation, characterization, and properties of hollow nanostructured materials and their various applications, in areas such as energy storage and conversion, chemocatalysis, electrocatalysis, photocatalysis, thermal insulation, and biomedicine. Hollow nanostructures are fascinating, but if they are not to become an academic-only luxury, finding their unique properties and applications will be crucial. Promising directions for hollow nanostructured materials could be the construction of hetero-“hollow-multishelled structures” (HoMSs), as well as the development of temporally–spatially ordered and dynamic smart HoMS. Success in these directions will lead to time-controlled and target-responsive mass transfer, and storage and release, which can guide us to develop novel nanomaterials, and help us address the global energy, healthcare, and environmental challenges we are facing today. The Guest Editor of this special issue is honored by the support given by the contributors, with particular acknowledgement to Prof. Jiaxing Huang from Northwestern University, Prof. Yadong Yin from University of California-Riverside, and Dr. Peter Gregory from Advanced Materials for their great contributions to this issue. We also wish to thank all the authors and referees for their kind and selfless support. In addition, we would like to express our appreciation to the Advanced Materials editorial team for their enthusiastic dedication and professional editing. Contributions from our colleagues at the Institute of Process Engineering-CAS and other cooperating institutes and universities are also sincerely appreciated. Dan Wang graduated from Jilin University in 1994. He entered a master's degree program at his alma mater in the same year. He obtained his Ph.D. from Yamanashi University in Japan in 2001. He conducted his postdoctoral research at Kochi University, and the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth and Kyoto University. He has served as professor at the Institute of Process Engineering, CAS from 2004. In recent years, he has mainly focused on the design and controllable synthesis of functional inorganic materials with porous or hollow structures, and their applications in solar cells, Li-ion batteries, photocatalysts, drug delivery, biosensors, and gas sensors.