Hydrothermal synthesis of iron phosphate microspheres constructed by mesoporous polyhedral nanocrystals

Novel monodispersed Fe-5(PO4)(4)(OH)(3)center dot 2H(2)O microspheres with the diameters of several micrometers were prepared by a facile one-step hydrothermal method without using any templates, only employing FeCl3 center dot 6H(2)O and NaNH4HPO4 as the initial materials. The obtained samples were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), respectively. The characterizations revealed that the as-prepared microspheres are constructed by the polyhedral nanoparticles with an average diameter of 100 nm. The corresponding FePO4 microspheres assembled by mesoporous polyhedral nanocrystals can be easily obtained by calcining a sphere-like Fe-5(PO4)(4)(OH)(3)center dot 2H(2)O precursor. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.