Artificial Synthesis and Improved Photo Catalysis Performance of Bionic Hierarchical Fibers Alpha-Fe2O3

Abstract

Alpha-Fe 2 O 3 is a cheap, abundant and low toxic oxidation semiconductor, which is a promising photovoltaic, photocatalytic, and electrochemical sensing material due to the visible light indirect band gap of 2.06 eV (about 600 nm). The size and shape of the Fe 2 O 3 play dominant roles in magnetic material, environmental remediation and photocatalysis. The novel hierarchical fibrous structures of pure and ceramic α-Fe 2 O 3 has been prepared using cotton as biological template. The field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) results show that the prepared iron oxide faithfully inherited the biological structure of the original cotton template. The bionic fibers material possesses certain magnetism, although common α-Fe 2 O 3 is not magnetic iron oxide. The bionic α-Fe 2 O 3 fibers exhibit superior photocatalytic decoloration performances of up to 96.8% for the methylene blue in the short time of 200 minutes under visible light irradiation. It is concluded that the presence of the hierarchical porous and fibrous structures in the bionic product act as active catalytic centers and play key roles in organic dye elimination.