Solution combustion synthesis (SCS) is a worldwide adopted technique to synthesize nanomaterials, especially for oxides, because of its simplicity, energy and time-effectiveness, and low cost. The general difficulty encountered in SCS is the controllability over phases and morphologies of the products, which arises from the inherent rapid and uncontrollable combustion procedure. In this regard, the present work is devoted to review the recent progress on phase- and morphology-controlled SCS in detail. Besides the various metal oxides, SCS is now applicable to fabricate nanomaterials of metal phosphates, metal silicates, metal borates, metal sulfides, metals, and even alloys, through careful selection of solution compositions. Oxides with regular morphologies of flowers, belts, triangles, tubes, wires, and rods can be synthesized by SCS, in the presence of certain templates, or through a self-assembly procedure. The recent progress made on the synthesis of porous materials via SCS is summarized. SCS is also capable of growing metal oxide thin films at low temperatures, enabling the fabrication of low-cost and high-performance electronics on flexible plastic substrates.

To magnify anatase/rutile phase junction effects through appropriate Au decorations, a facile solution-based approach was developed to synthesize Au/TiO₂ nanoforests with controlled Au locations. The nanoforests cons^®isted of anatase nanowires surrounded by radially grown rutile branches, on which Au nanoparticles were deposited with preferred locations controlled by simply altering the order of the fabrication step. The Au-decoration increased the photocatalytic activity under the illumination of either UV or visible light, because of the beneficial effects of either electron trapping or localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). Gold nanoparticles located preferably at the interface of anatase/rutile led to a further enhanced photocatalytic activity. The appropriate distributions of Au nanoparticles magnify the beneficial effects arising from the anatase/rutile phase junctions when illuminated by UV light. Under the visible light illumination, the LSPR effect followed by the consecutive electron transfer explains the enhanced photocatalysis. This study provides a facile route to control locations of gold nanoparticles in one-dimensional nanostructured arrays of multiple-phases semiconductors for achieving a further increased photocatalytic activity.