Low-temperature synthesis of α-Fe2O3 hexagonal nanoparticles for environmental remediation and smart sensor applications.

Autor: Umar A; Promising Centre for Sensors and Electronic Devices (PCSED), Najran University, Najran-11001, P.O. Box-1988, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Department of Chemistry, College of Science and Arts, Najran University, Najran-11001, P.O. Box-1988, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Electronic address: ahmadumar786@gmail.com., Akhtar MS, Dar GN, Baskoutas S
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Talanta [Talanta] 2013 Nov 15; Vol. 116, pp. 1060-6. Date of Electronic Publication: 2013 Aug 23.
DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2013.08.026
Abstrakt: This work demonstrates the successful synthesis and characterizations of α-Fe2O3 hexagonal nanoparticles and their effective utilization for the degradation of hazardous Rhodamine B (RhB) dye and smart chemical sensor applications. The as-synthesized materials were characterized by various analytical techniques which revealed that the prepared nanoparticles are well-crystalline, possessing hexagonal shape, grown in high-density and well matched with the rhombohedral α-Fe2O3 structures. The as-synthesized α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles were used as efficient photocatalyst for the photocatalytic degradation of RhB-dye under light illumination which showed substantial degradation (~79%) of RhB-dye in 140 min. The considerable photo-degradation of RhB-dye attributed to the unique morphology of the synthesized α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles which might import the effective electron/hole separation and generate the large number of oxy-radicals. Moreover, the synthesized α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles were utilized as efficient electron mediators for the fabrication of 4-nitrophenol chemical sensor in aqueous media. The fabricated chemical sensor exhibited a high-sensitivity of ~367.6 µA (mol L(-1))(-1) cm(-2) and an experimental detection limit of ~1.56×10(-3) mol L(-1) in a short response time of ~10.0 s with linearity in the range of 1.56×10(-3)-12.5×10(-3) mol L(-1) and correlation coefficient (R) of ~0.99963. These investigations demonstrated that the simply synthesized α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles can effectively be used as efficient photocatalyst for the photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes and effective electron mediators for the fabrication of highly sensitive chemical sensors in aqueous medium.
(© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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