Controllable Synthesis, Magnetic Properties, and Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity of Spindlelike Mesoporous α-Fe2O3/ZnO Core-Shell Heterostructures

Mesoporous spindlelike iron oxide/ZnO core-shell heterostructures are successfully fabricated by a low-cost, surfactant-free, and environmentally friendly seed-mediate strategy with the help of postannealing treatment The material composition and stoichiometry, as well as these magnetic and optical properties, have been examined and verified by means of high resolution transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction, the thickness of ZnO layer can be simply tailored by the concentration of zinc precursor. Considering that both alpha-Fe2O3 and ZnO are good photocatalytic materials, we have investigated the photodegradation performances of the core-shell heterostructures using organic dyes Rhodamin B (RhB). It is interesting to find that the as obtained iron oxides/ZnO core-shell heterostructures exhibited enhanced visible light or UV photocatalytic abilities, remarkably superior to the as-used alpha-Fe2O3 seeds and commercial TiO2 products (P25), mainly owing to the synergistic effect between the narrow and wide bandgap semiconductors and effective electron-hole separation at the interfaces of iron oxides/ZnO.