‘Horror Vacui’ in the Oxygen Sublattice of Lithium Niobate Made Affordable by Cationic Flexibility

The present review is intended to interest a broader audience interested in the resolution of the several decades-long controversy on the possible role of oxygen-vacancy defects in LiNbO3. Confronting ideas of a selected series of papers from classical experiments to brand new large-scale calculations, a unified interpretation of the defect generation and annealing mechanisms governing processes during thermo- and mechanochemical treatments and irradiations of various types is presented. The dominant role of as-grown and freshly generated Nb antisite defects as traps for small polarons and bipolarons is demonstrated, while mobile lithium vacancies, also acting as hole traps, are shown to provide flexible charge compensation needed for stability. The close relationship between LiNbO3 and the Li battery materials LiNb3O8 and Li3NbO4 is pointed out. The oxygen sublattice of the bulk plays a much more passive role, whereas oxygen loss and Li2O segregation take place in external or internal surface layers of a few nanometers.

Sweet graphene: exfoliation of graphite and preparation of glucose-graphene cocrystals through mechanochemical treatments

Mechanochemical treatment with carbohydrates has led to the successful exfoliation of graphite, which could be considered as a sustainable methodology to prepare graphene.

Preparation of Lithium Niobate Powders by Mechanochemical Process

Lithium niobate powders were prepared by mechanochemical treatments using Li2CO3 and Nb2O5 as raw materials. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) were employed to evaluate the morphologies and structures of samples. The mechanism of LiNbO3 formation of the ground mixture samples was discussed. The crystal structure of mixture was collapsed into a disordered structure, which increased with increasing grinding time. At the same time, the specific surface area increase and the bond energy reduction of the mixture occurred. Consequently, high energy ball milling enables increase of the internal energy, reduction of the activation energy, and improvement of the uniform mixing stage, which resulted in direct formation of singal phase LiNbO3 at a low temperature (500°C). However, the temperature must reach 1200°C for the traditional method.

Preparation of Strontium Ferrite Powders by Mechanochemical Process

Sr-ferrite powders were preparated by mechanochemical treatments using SrCO3 and Fe2O3 as raw materials. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) were employed to evaluated the morphologies, structures and magnetic properties of samples. The results indicated that the starting mixture became amorphous stage after ball-milled for 30h, and single phase SrFe12O19 could be obtained after annealed at 900°C for 2h. And the saturation magnetization was 58.2Am2/kg, and coercivity was 281.2 kA/m at room temperature. In comparison with the traditional firing method , the mechanochemical method benefited achieving the higher coercivity, which indicated that the samples had a better magnetic properties.

Preparation of Manganese Ferrite Powders by Mechanochemical Process

Mn-ferrite powders were prepared by mechanochemical treatments using MnO2and Fe2O3as raw materials. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) were employed to evaluated the morphologies and structures of samples. The results indicated that the starting mixture became amorphous stage after ball-milled for 40h, and single phase MnFe2O4could be obtained after annealed at 1200°C for 2h. In comparison with the traditional firing method , the mechanochemical method benefited achieving the higher saturation magnetization, which indicated that the samples had a better magnetic properties.

Synthesis and Magnetic Properties of La-Doped Ni Ferrites

Ni ferrites doped with lanthanum with a nominal composition of NiFe2-xLaxO4(x=0.05) were obtained by mechanochemical treatments using NiCO3•2Ni (OH)2•4H2O , La2O3 and Fe2O3 as raw materials. Both series of materials were characterised by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM). The results indicated that the mixture became amorphous stage after ball-milled for 30 h, and single phase NiFe1.95La0.05O4 could be obtained after calcined at 700 for 2 h. The addition of lanthanum resulted in a reduction of all the magnetic parameters evaluated.