Facile synthesis of α-Fe2O3 hollow sub-microstructures, morphological control and magnetic properties

Novel barrel-shaped alpha-Fe2O3 hollow sub-microstructures were prepared by a simple hydrothermal method, without any templates in the reaction system. All chemicals used were low-cost and environmentally benign. The samples were characterized by XRD, XPS, FT-IR, TGA, FE-SEM, HR-TEM and VSM. The possible formation mechanism of these hollow barrel-shaped alpha-Fe2O3 sub-microstructures is described based on the experimental results. It is found that the presence of glucose facilitates the formation of glucose-derived, carbon-rich polysaccharide (GCP)-coated FeOOH nanorods, which play a key role in the formation of hollow alpha-Fe2O3 sub-microstructures. In addition, the effects of the glucose and urea on the formation of the alpha-Fe2O3 with various morphologies were investigated systematically. The magnetic hysteresis measurements suggest that the as-synthesized pure alpha-Fe2O3 with various morphologies possessed different magnetic properties depending on the shape and size of the samples.