Fabrication of γ-Fe2O3 Nanowires from Abundant and Low-cost Fe Plate for Highly Effective Electrocatalytic Water Splitting

The fabrication of a hybrid fluorescent nanosensing system and its practical applications via film kits for the selective determination of mercury ions

Heavy metal ions especially mercury exposure have severe toxic effects on living organisms and human health. Therefore, easy, accessible, and accurate determination strategies for the selective specification of mercury ions are essential for numerous disciplines. In the presented paper, new hybrid fluorescent iron oxide nanoparticles labeled with carbazole and triazole units (CT-IONP) were prepared via surface modification for the spectrofluorimetric determination of Hg2+ in environmental samples. The structure of the new sensing system is characterized via various spectroscopic, thermal, and microscopic techniques. Under optimized conditions, the hybrid system is not only used in fully water media but also highly fluorescent which led to the "turn-off" response towards Hg2+ ion in the presence of various competitive species. The presented sensing system was successfully used for the determination of Hg2+ ions in the wide linear working range (0.02-10.00 µmol.L-1) at nanomolar levels, where the limit of detection and quantification were calculated as 7.38 and 22.14 nmol.L-1. Importantly, the practical application of hybrid material was applied by CT-IONP embedded polycaprolactone (PCL) polymer film kits. The bluish color of fabricated film kits was instantly and dramatically turned colorless-dark patterns after the addition of Hg2+ ions, which resulted in convenient and rapid film test kits for selective detection.

Magnetic chitosan stabilized palladium nanostructures: Potential catalysts for aqueous Suzuki coupling reactions

This work describes the preparation of palladium-based catalyst supported on magnetic chitosan (Pd@IO-Chitosan) for Suzuki Miyaura C-C coupling reaction. The Pd@IO-Chitosan catalyst was characterized using different spectroscopic and microscopic techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), transmission electron microscope (TEM), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES) Spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Pd@IO-Chitosan was further analysed by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) in order to determine its thermal behavior. The catalyst comprised Pd, PdO species stabilised by chitosan that facilitated Suzuki coupling reactions. Palladium loading as low as 0.0055 mol% was found to be effective for aqueous Suzuki cross-couplings with excellent yields of over 99%. The catalyst could be recycled and reused at least 12 times with no significant decrease in its catalytic activity.

Surface reducibility, reactivity, and stability induced by noble metal modifications on theγ-Fe2O3maghemite (001) surfaces

In these last years large research efforts have been devoted to the synthesis and investigation of reducible metal oxide surfaces modified with metal atoms and nanoparticles for improving their performance in a number of advanced applications. Among reducible metal oxides, iron oxides have the advantage to be made up from two of the most common elements on Earth. In this paper we analyze the structural, electronic, and magnetic consequences of the insertion of isolated noble metal atoms (Cu, Ag, Au) on theγ-Fe2O3(001) surface. We have considered many different configurations for the single atoms: adsorbed, substitutional to iron atoms, or to oxygen atoms, and, using first principles calculations, we have studied how the presence of the noble metal atoms on the surface influences the surface stability, its reducibility, and, therefore, its catalytic activity, and how these properties depend on the kind of noble metal atom and its position. Our results show that noble metal atoms adsorbed on the surface facilitate the adsorption of CO molecules, and, among them, Cu atoms are those that bind best to the surface also providing the strongest adsorption energy for the CO molecule. At ambient temperature and pressure the noble metal atoms prefer to substitute the iron atoms than to just adsorb on the surface, but for Ag atoms the adsorption and substitutional energies are very close. The surfaces with Ag in place of Fe are the most reducible and reactive for exchange of oxygen atoms. Finally, Au is the best noble metal for oxygen substitution. Our results provide useful insights for the researchers designing and synthesizing new noble metal-iron oxides nanostructures for applications in biology, medicine, catalysis, and chemical analysis.