Introduction (General Considerations on the 1D Oxide Nanostructures)

Since the discovery of the carbon nanotubes, the interest for obtaining analogue nanostructures based on inorganic materials increased considerably. Besides the layered d-metal dichalcogenides, followed by boron nitrides, boron carbides or boron carbonitrides, metallic nanotubes and nanowires, and so on, a wide range of data concerning the p-(Si, Al, Mg), d-(Ge, Ti, Zn, Nb, Ta, Zr, V, Mo), and f-(Dy, Tb, Eu) oxide 1D structure synthesis were reported. The book is focused on wet chemical methods of 1D-type oxide nanostructure preparation, as sol–gel and hydrothermal methods which are versatile, not expensive techniques, and thus appropriate for obtaining a wide range of oxide materials with tailored morphology and properties. Three specific oxides (SiO2, TiO2, ZnO) were selected in order to describe the principle of the sol–gel and hydrothermal preparation of the 1D oxide nanostructures, followed by discussion of other oxides synthesized by the mentioned method. The correlation between the tubular structure and the physicochemical properties of studied 1D oxide nanostructures was driving in unexpected and valuable results.