Abstract
The paper presents the results of a study of vanadium xerogel synthesized by sol‐gel method. It shows that, during the aging process in gel formation, a layered fibrous chain structure of V–O occurs at the nanoscale. Highly anisotropic particles, similar in size to the “tapes” of vanadium oxide gel, were found on the surface of partially ordered layers. IR spectroscopic analyses of groups of V=O and of V–O bonds suggest that the high degree of order in the films is related to the fact that one of the water molecules is found to be short in double bonded V=O. Consequently, the growth chains take place predominantly in the plane equivalent to OH groups. Most of the VO–H consist of twisted (spiral) vanadium oxygen layers and have the morphology of tubes, the ends of which are open. Owing to such morphology of VO–H, significant structural flexibility is observed, which distinguishes them not only from carbon, but also from most other nanotubes.