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[[Vol. 54]A Low-cost, Safe and High-performance Iron Oxide Photocatalyst_WPI- MANA.pdf](https://mdr.nims.go.jp/filesets/0cf1c3f3-a4c8-429a-96ac-df2131f5f5ea/download)

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International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA)

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[[Research Highlights Vol.54] A Low-cost, Safe and High-performance Iron Oxide Photocatalyst](https://mdr.nims.go.jp/datasets/e2b598d7-de7f-496d-b189-34b3d17b9690)

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2022/03/31 16:25 A Low-cost, Safe and High-performance Iron Oxide Photocatalyst| MANAhttps://www.nims.go.jp/mana/research/highlights/vol54.html 1/2Previous  Index  NextResearch Highlights[Vol. 54]A Low-cost, Safe and High-performance Iron Oxide Photocatalyst13 Nov, 2019A team at MANA has devised a technique for boosting the performance of iron oxidephotocatalysts, which could lead to low-cost, non-toxic and environment-friendlyalternatives to current materials, as well as new uses, such as photocatalyticapplications in living bodies.Photocatalysts like titanium dioxide (TiO2), when irradiated with sunlight or indoor light, have theability to oxidize organic molecules. This makes them useful in a variety of environmental andenergy-related applications, such as air cleaners, antibacterial tiles, self-cleaning surfaces, air andwater purification systems, sterilization, hydrogen evolution, and photoelectrochemical conversion.They are also expected to be used to synthesize organic chemicals such as nylon precursor KA-oil,but because of their low performance, they have to be modified with expensive and toxic materialsto make them usable.Iron oxides are non-toxic and relatively low-cost photocatalysts. But their activity is low because oftoo-fast recombination of photo-generated electrons and holes that attack organic molecules.https://www.nims.go.jp/mana/research/highlights/vol53.htmlhttps://www.nims.go.jp/mana/research/highlights/index.htmlhttps://www.nims.go.jp/mana/research/highlights/vol55.html2022/03/31 16:25 A Low-cost, Safe and High-performance Iron Oxide Photocatalyst| MANAhttps://www.nims.go.jp/mana/research/highlights/vol54.html 2/2The MANA team designed an iron oxide material exhibiting an unprecedentedly high photocatalyticperformance by immobilizing ferric oxide nanoparticles on the walls of a scaffold made ofmesoporous silica. These nanoparticles are partially etched to stably form condensed ferric dimericmolecules, which are otherwise very unstable. The result was a new photocatalyst with retardedelectron hole recombination due to its structure, as well as activity for KA-oil synthesis viaoxidation of cyclohexane that is much higher than TiO2.The material’s performance is higher than its predecessors, but more improvement is needed forpractical use by optimizing synthetic conditions and reaction conditions, such as ferric dimerloading, catalyst amounts and light intensity. The team also plans to investigate other relatedphotocatalysts for oxidizing a range of organic compounds for chemical synthesis andenvironmental purification.This research was carried out by Yusuke Ide (Acting Group Leader of Mesoscale MaterialsChemistry Group, MANA, NIMS) and his collaborators.Reference"Condensed ferric dimers for green photocatalytic synthesis of nylon precursors"Yusuke Ide, Satoshi Tominaka, Yumi Yoneno, Kenji Komaguchi, Toshiaki Takei, Hidechika Nishida,Nao Tsunoji, Akihiko Machida and Tsuneji SanoJournal : Chem. Sci. 10 (2019) 6604.DOI : 10.1039/c9sc01253bAffiliationsInternational Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for MaterialsScience (NIMS), Namiki 1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, JapanContact informationInternational Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics(WPI-MANA)National Institute for Materials Science1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044 JapanPhone: +81-29-860-4710E-mail: mana-pr[AT]ml.nims.go.jphttps://samurai.nims.go.jp/profiles/ide_yusuke?locale=enhttps://samurai.nims.go.jp/profiles/ide_yusuke?locale=enhttps://samurai.nims.go.jp/profiles/tominaka_satoshi?locale=enhttps://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/sc/c9sc01253b#!divAbstract