Transition metal oxides, such as the mixed-valent rare-earth manganites Ln(1-x)AxMnO3 (Ln, rare-earth ion, and A, alkaline-earth ion), show a variety of electronic orders with spatially correlated charge, spin and orbital arrangements, which in turn give rise to many fascinating phenomena and properties. These materials are also electronically inhomogeneous, i.e. they contain disjoint spatial r...

Highly active/stable inverse catalysts of nano-oxides on large gold particles are designed and tailored. For the gas-phase oxidation of alcohols as a model reaction, the experimental and theoretical results verify that the catalyst activity depends on the gold-oxide interface, and the anti-sintering feature of such an inverse structure endows the catalyst with high stability.

Discharges of metal oxide nanoparticles into aquatic environments are increasing with their use in society, thereby increasing exposure risk for aquatic organisms. Separating the impacts of nanoparticle from dissolved metal pollution is critical for assessing the environmental risks of the rapidly growing nanomaterial industry, especially in terms of ecosystem effects. Metal oxides negatively a...

The first part of the review contrasts the main drawbacks of silica-based packings such as their relative thermal and chemical instability with excellent stability of metal oxides. The paper concerns mainly ZrO2, TiO2 and Al2O3. Methods of preparation of spherical particles for HPLC are described. Surface chemistry of the oxides is, however, very different from that of silica. Ability of the ox...

Investigations of perovskite oxides triggered by the discovery of high-temperature and unconventional superconductors have had crucial roles in stimulating and guiding the development of modern condensed-matter physics. Antiperovskite oxides are charge-inverted counterpart materials to perovskite oxides, with unusual negative ionic states of a constituent metal. No superconductivity was reporte...

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been widely used in the field of portable electric devices because of their high energy density and long cycling life. To further improve the performance of LIBs, it is of great importance to develop new electrode materials. Various transition metal oxides (TMOs) have been extensively investigated as electrode materials for LIBs. According to the reaction mecha...

In the isostructural oxides Ca3CoMO6 (M = Co, Rh, Ir), the CoMO6 chains made up of face-sharing CoO6 trigonal prisms and MO6 octahedra are separated by Ca atoms. We analyzed the magnetic and electronic properties of these oxides on the basis of density functional theory calculations including on-site repulsion and spin-orbit coupling, and examined the essential one-electron pictures hidden behi...

Porous nanostructured materials are demonstrated to be very promising in catalysis due to their well accessible active sites. Thermally stable metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as hard templates are successfully utilized to afford porous metal oxides and subsequently metal sulfides by a nanocasting method. The resultant metal oxides/sulfides show considerable Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface ...