Fabrication of PbCrO4 nanostructures:: from nanotubes to nanorods

A new and efficient Tx-100/cyclohexanol/H2O micellar system has been developed to synthesize rectangular single-crystalline PbCrO4 nanotubes and nanorods through a self-seeding template growth (SSTG) process at room temperature. Studies found that the whole procedure involves the nucleation of nanoparticles, the growth into nanotubes from nanoparticles and the evolution into nanorods from nanotubes, merely by stepwise prolonging the reaction time while keeping other conditions constant. This simple method provides guidance for the morphology control of other nanostructural materials.