A facile biomolecule-assisted approach for fabricating α-Fe2O3 nanowires in solution

In this study, we present a facile biomolecule-assisted solution-phase approach to fabricating 1D hematite (alpha-Fe2O3) nanowires on a large scale, in which glycine was used as the capping agent in solution. A series of time-dependent experiments reveal that the resulting alpha-Fe2O3 nanowires grow preferentially along the (001) direction possessing the oriented attachment mechanism with the help of glycine. This facile synthetic strategy might be extended to prepare other inorganic nanomaterials with anisotropic morphology. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.