Biosynthesis of mesoporous organic-inorganic hybrid Fe2O3 with high photocatalytic activity

A very simple approach with yeast cells as a biotemplate was proposed to synthesize a mesoporous hybrid Fe2O3 photocatalyst. The mesoporous structure of the resultant samples was characterized by BET, N-2 adsorption-desorption isotherms (NADI) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The chemical bond linkages in hybrid Fe2O3 samples were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The catalytic activities of mesoporous hybrid Fe2O3 on degradation of methyl orange were investigated under UV-light irradiation. The hybrid Fe2O3 (yeast cell amount is 0.6 g) samples dried at 80 degrees C and calcined at 300 degrees C exhibit high surface area and photocatalytic activity. Crown Copyright (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.