Preparation of iron (III) oxide nanoparticles using a mesoporous carbon nitride template for photocatalytic phenol removal

Abstract

In this study, mesoporous carbon nitride (mp-C3N4) was used as a novel removable template to prepare iron (III) oxide (Fe2O3) nanoparticles. Without the template, the formed Fe2O3 has micrometer size, while using the mp-C3N4 template led to the formation of Fe2O3 nanoparticles. The prepared Fe2O3 nanoparticles showed comparable high crystallinity to the Fe2O3 sample prepared without template. It was confirmed that all samples prepared using mp-C3N4 template showed better photocatalytic activity than the bulk Fe2O3. Total removal of phenol (100%) can be achieved after 15 h on the Fe2O3 samples prepared at 973 K using mp-C3N4 with pore sizes of 7 and 12 nm, while only ca. 30% was observed on the bulk Fe2O3. It was suggested that the smaller the particle size, the shorter the diffusion length of electron to migrate to the surface, resulted in the lower electron-hole recombination that would lead to the higher photocatalytic activity.