The synthesis mechanism of Fe2O3, Co3O4, CoFe2O4 and Co3O4-CoFe2O4 were illustrated in Fig. 1a. The formation procedure can be described as two main steps. In the first stage, the uniform iron-cobalt glycerate spheres with different molar ratios (1:0, 0:1, 1:2 and 2:1) as the precursor are generated by applying a concise solvothermal reaction. In the second key stage, the generation of various structures was realized by converting FeCo-glycerate solid spheres into core–shell or hollow spheres