Using the thermal oxidation of iron, we show that the growth morphologies of one-dimensional nanostructures of hematite (a-Fe2O3) can be tuned by varying the oxygen gas pressure. It is found that the oxidation at the oxygen gas pressures of ;0.1 Torr is dominated by the growth of hematite nanobelts, whereas oxidation at pressure near 200 Torr is dominated by the growth of hematite nanowires. De...

This paper addresses the origin of the decrease in the external electrical bias required for water photoelectrolysis with hematite photoanodes, observed following surface treatments of such electrodes. We consider two alternative surface modifications: a cobalt oxo/hydroxo-based (CoO(x)) overlayer, reported previously to function as an efficient water oxidation electrocatalyst, and a Ga(2)O(3) ...

Undoped hematite nanowire arrays grown using plasma oxidation of iron foils show significant photoactivity (~0.38 mA cm(-2) at 1.5 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode in 1 M KOH). In contrast, thermally oxidized nanowire arrays grown on iron exhibit no photoactivity due to the formation of a thick (>7 μm Fe(1-x)O) interfacial layer. An atmospheric plasma oxidation process required only a few...

The colloidal stability of suspensions of hematite/yttria core/shell particles is investigated in this work and compared with that of the pure hematite cores. The different electrical surface characteristics of yttrium and iron oxides, as well as the diameters of both types of spherical particles, dominate the overall process of particle aggregation. The aggregation kinetics of the suspensions ...

To study the photodegradation of organic pollutants at the interface of minerals and water in natural environment, three series of alumina-coupled iron oxides (Al(2)O(3)-Fe(2)O(3)-300, Al(2)O(3)-Fe(2)O(3)-420, and Al(2)O(3)-Fe(2)O(3)-550) with different alumina fraction were prepared and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) and Barret-Joyner-Halender (BJH), and...

We present a hybrid density functional theory (DFT) study of doping effects in α-Fe(2)O(3), hematite. Standard DFT underestimates the band gap by roughly 75% and incorrectly identifies hematite as a Mott-Hubbard insulator. Hybrid DFT accurately predicts the proper structural, magnetic, and electronic properties of hematite and, unlike the DFT+U method, does not contain d-electron specific empir...

The interfacial properties of the system hematite/dicarboxylic acid were investigated in the presence of sodium perchlorate by means of adsorption, zeta potential and surface potential measurements. Maleic and fumaric acid were used as dicarboxylic acids. No significant difference in the surface potential values of hematite with and without the presence of dicarboxylic acids was observed. On th...

As an important component of soil organic matter (SOM), the transformation of pyrogenic carbon plays a critical role in the biogeochemical cycles of carbon and other redox-active elements such as iron (Fe). Herein, we studied the influences of wheat straw-derived biochars on the microbial reduction of 100 mM of hematite by the dissimilatory metal reducing bacteria Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 und...

We report a mechanistic study of the catalytic effect of Ni(OH)2 on hematite nanowires for photoelectrochemical water oxidation. Ni compounds have been shown to be good catalysts for electrochemical and photoelectrochemical water oxidation. While we also observed improved photocurrents for Ni-catalyst decorated hematite photoanodes, we found that the photocurrents decay rapidly, indicating the ...

[1] First-order reversal curve (FORC) diagrams have become a standard tool in rock magnetism, yet magnetite is the only magnetic mineral that is well characterized using FORC diagrams. We present FORC diagrams for predominantly single-domain (SD) synthetic aluminous hematite (a-Fe2-xAlxO3) and goethite (a-(FeAl)OOH) and natural greigite (Fe3S4) and pyrrhotite (Fe7S8) to constrain interpretation...