A water–ethanol mixed-solution hydrothermal route to silicates nanowires

In this manuscript, series of silicates nanowires, such as calcium silicate, strontium silicate, barium silicate, zinc silicate and cadmium silicate, etc., have been successfully prepared from a water–ethanol mixed solution system through a hydrothermal synthetic way. The formation process of these silicates nanowires has been studied in detail. Due to their rich sources and possible novel properties from reduced dimensionalities, we believe that the synthesis of these silicates nanowires may bring some new opportunity in the solid state chemistry and nanoscience and technology fields, etc.