Synthesis of self-assembled mesoporous 3D In2O3 hierarchical micro flowers composed of nanosheets and their electrochemical properties

Balasubramaniam Arul Prakasam; Manu Lahtinen; Anssi Peuronen; Govindhasamy Manikandan; Manickavachagam Muruganandham; Mika Sillanpää

doi:10.1039/c8ra03573c

Synthesis of self-assembled mesoporous 3D In₂O₃ hierarchical micro flowers composed of nanosheets and their electrochemical properties

RSC Adv. 2018 Jul 18;8(45):25856-25865. doi: 10.1039/c8ra03573c. eCollection 2018 Jul 16.

Authors

Balasubramaniam Arul Prakasam^{1

2}, Manu Lahtinen³, Anssi Peuronen³, Govindhasamy Manikandan², Manickavachagam Muruganandham¹, Mika Sillanpää^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Green Chemistry, School of Engineering Science, Lappeenranta University of Technology Sammonkatu 12 FI-50130 Mikkeli Finland [email protected].
² Department of Chemistry, Annamalai University Annamalainagar 608002 India.
³ Department of Chemistry, Laboratories of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, University of Jyväskylä P. O. Box 35 FI-40014 Finland.
⁴ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Florida International University Miami FL-33174 USA.

Abstract

This report describes the methodology for the fabrication of mesoporous In₂O₃ microflowers by hydrothermal and calcination procedures in which In(OH)₃/In₂S₃ acts as an intermediate. Both In₂O₃ and its precursor were analyzed with scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectrophotometry, transmission electron microscopy and powder X-ray diffraction. BET surface area, pore size and pore volume analyses were also carried out. Electron microscopy images clearly evidence the self-assembly of 2D nanosheets into the micro flower structure. The mechanism of self-assembly and calcination is reported. Electrochemical properties of the synthesized In₂O₃ micro flowers were studied.