Abstract
Iron oxide nanoparticles represent a promising low-cost environmentally-friendly material for multiple applications. Especially hematite (α-Fe2O3) nanoparticles demonstrate great possibilities in energy storage and photoelectrochemistry. A hydrothermal one-pot synthesis can be used to synthesise hematite nanoparticles. Here, the particle formation, nucleation and growth of iron oxide nanoparticles using a FeCl3 precursor over time is monitored. The formation of 6-line ferrihydrite seeds of 2–8 nm which grow with reaction time and form clusters followed by a phase transition to ~15 nm hematite particles can be observed with ex situ X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman and UV/Vis spectroscopy. These particles grow with reaction time leading to 40 nm particles after 6 hours. The changes in plasmon and electron transition patterns, observed upon particle transition and growth lead to the possibility of tuning the photoelectrochemical properties. Catalytic activity of the hematite nanoparticles can be proven with visible light irradiation and the use of silver nitrate as scavenger material. The generation of elementary silver is dependent on the particle size of iron oxide nanoparticles while only slight changes can be observed in the oxygen generation. Low-cost nanoscale hematite, offers a range of future applications for artificial photosynthesis.
Highlights
Iron oxide nanoparticles represent a promising low-cost environmentally-friendly material for multiple applications
An increase in particle size with time as well as an increasing polydispersity can be observed by the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) particle size distributions (Figure S2)
The particle size distributions obtained by dynamic light scattering (DLS) are quite narrow with polydispersity indices below 0.2
Summary
Iron oxide nanoparticles represent a promising low-cost environmentally-friendly material for multiple applications. The formation of 6-line ferrihydrite seeds of 2–8 nm which grow with reaction time and form clusters followed by a phase transition to ~15 nm hematite particles can be observed with ex situ X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman and UV/Vis spectroscopy. Colloidal iron oxide nanoparticles (IONs) demonstrate a great potential for applications ranging from metallurgical processing[1] and wastewater treatment[2,3] to medical[4] and biotechnology[5,6,7,8], energy storage[9,10,11,12,13] and catalysis[13,14,15]. The particles are tested towards their properties for the photooxidation of water depending on their size
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