Carbon-based hollow structured nanomaterials have become one of the hot areas for research and development of hollow structured nanomaterials due to their unique structure, excellent physicochemical properties and promising applications. The design and synthesis of novel carbon-based hollow structured nanomaterials are of great scientific significance and wide application value. The recent research on the synthesis, structure and functionalization of carbon-based hollow structured nanomaterials and their related applications are reviewed. The basic synthetic strategies of carbon-based hollow structure nanomaterials are briefly introduced, and the structural design, material functionalization and main applications of carbon-based hollow structure nanomaterials are described in detail. Finally, the current challenges and opportunities in the synthesis and application of carbon-based hollow structured nanomaterials are discussed.

Nanotechnology is recognized as one of the high and new technologies in the 21st century. Carbon nanotubes have been widely used in molecular sieve, drug transport and seawater desalination due to their unique mechanical, electrical, optical and other excellent properties. As the main representative of carbon nanotube macroscopic materials, carbon nanotube film not only retains the microscopic properties of carbon nanotube, but also has good mechanical properties and stable chemical properties. The preparation and application of carbon nanotubes (CNTS) have attracted extensive attention from scholars at home and abroad. In this paper, the research on carbon nanotube films in recent years is reviewed. Based on the preparation of carbon nanotube films, chemical vapor deposition, LB (Langmuir-Blodgett) film and electrostatic layer-by-layer self-assembly techniques are briefly described. In addition, the applications of carbon nanotubes in biological field, photoelectric nano devices, water treatment, seawater desalination and other fields are also described.

The search for the development of nanostructured materials has led to the study of the properties of their precursors. For the production of nanofibers by the electrospinning process, it is necessary to determine the rheological parameters of the precursor solutions. Since these properties can be influenced by the processing variables and chemical composition of the polymer, this study aims to elucidate the effect of the addition of vinyl monomers in the formulation of nanofibers based on polyacrylonitrile and to determine the optimal parameters for the production of the precursor polymer solution. The effects of temperature and addition of vinyl monomers were evaluated by rheometry, from the analysis of the variation of the viscosity of the solutions, and by microscopy, the morphology of the nanofibers produced. It was observed that the increase in the temperature used to produce the solutions improves the fibers’ properties. Still, there is a relationship between the time of exposure of the polymeric solution to the temperature and the homogeneity of the fibers, which cannot exceed 45 min. The addition of vinyl monomers, to produce PAN-PVA co-polymeric fibers, increases the conductivity and reduces the viscosity of the solutions, resulting in more refined and homogeneous fibers.

Every production day in Nigeria, and in other oil producing countries, millions of barrels of produced water is generated. Being very toxic, remediation of the produced water before discharge into environment or re-use is very essential. An eco-friendly and cost effective approach is hereby reported for remediative pre-treatment of produced water (PW) obtained from Nigerian oilfield. In this approach, Telfairia occidentalis stem extract-silver nanoparticles (TOSE-AgNPs) were synthesized, characterized and applied as bio-based adsorbent for treating the PW in situ. The nanoparticles were of average size 42.8 nm ± 5.3 nm, spherical to round shaped and mainly composed of nitrogen and oxygen as major atoms on the surface. Owing to the effect of addition of TOSE-AgNPs, the initially high levels (mg/L) of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and TSS of 607, 3.78 and 48.4 in the PW were reduced to 381, 1.22 and 19.6, respectively, whereas DO and COD improved from 161 and 48.4 to 276 and 19.6 respectively, most of which fell within WHO and US-EPA safe limits. Particularly, the added TOSE-AgNPs efficiently removed Pb (II) ions from the PW at temperatures between 25 ℃ to 50 ℃. Removal of TOSE-AgNPs occurred through the adsorption mechanism and was dependent contact time, temperature and dose of TOSE-AgNPs added. Optimal remediation was achieved with 0.5 g/L TOSE-AgNPs at 30 ℃ after 5 h contact time. Adsorption of Pb (Ⅱ) ions on TOSE-AgNPs was spontaneous and physical in nature with remediation efficiency of over 82% of the Pb (Ⅱ) ions in solution. Instead of discarding the stem of Telfairia occidentalis, it can be extracted and prepared into a new material and applied in the oilfield as reported here for the first time.