This review aims to give a comprehensive account of the strategies used to prepare mono metallic nanoparticles and multimetallic materials in liquid polyols and to exemplify the potential of this method.

Iron oxide and gold-based magneto-plasmonic nanostructures exhibit remarkable optical and superparamagnetic properties originating from their two different components. As a consequence, they have improved and broadened the application potential of nanomaterials in medicine. They can be used as multifunctional nanoprobes for magneto-plasmonic heating as well as for magnetic and optical imaging. They can also be used for magnetically assisted optical biosensing, to detect extreme traces of targeted bioanalytes. This review introduces the previous work on magneto-plasmonic hetero-nanostructures including: (i) their synthesis from simple “one-step” to complex “multi-step” routes, including seed-mediated and non-seed-mediated methods; and (ii) the characterization of their multifunctional features, with a special emphasis on the relationships between their synthesis conditions, their structures and their properties. It also focuses on the most important progress made with regard to their use in nanomedicine, keeping in mind the same aim, the correlation between their morphology—namely spherical and non-spherical, core-satellite and core-shell, and the desired applications.

The term “polyol process” was first used in the late eighties by Fiévet, Lagier, and Figlarz

The structure and microstructure of polyol-made non-stoichiometric Mn–Zn ferrite nanoparticles were successfully investigated and correlated to their catalytic properties toward dimethyl ether oxidation reaction.

ZnS–TiO₂ hetero-nanostructured photocatalysts were synthesized by the impregnation of ZnS quantum dots (QDs) on the surface of TiO₂ nanofibers. Samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission gun scanning electron microscopy (FEG-SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The photocatalytic activity of the prepared nanostructures was assessed by the photodegradation of methylene blue in an aqueous solution under UV irradiation. It was found that titanium dioxide impregnated with ZnS QDs increased photocatalytic activity. We demonstrated that methylene blue was more efficiently photodegraded by UV irradiation using ZnS-TiO₂ heterogeneous photocatalysts than using pristine TiO₂ nanofibers.