A novel quick and facile polymer-assisted microwave synthesis route to prepare mesoporous binary metal oxides α-Fe2O3 and α-Mn2O3 and spinel-type ferrites NiFe2O4 and ZnFe2O4 is presented, which could potentially be applied for many other mixed metal oxides. The presented synthesis only needs 15-30 minutes, much shorter than conventional approaches for mesoporous materials. Thorough characterization of the materials was performed by Powder X-Ray Diffraction (PXRD), Raman spectroscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS), nitrogen physisorption analysis, mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP), diffuse reflectance infrared fourier transform (DRIFT), UV-Vis spectroscopy and scanning (SEM) as well as transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and selected area electron diffraction (SAED). Furthermore, mesoporous α-Mn2O3 and NiFe2O4 were applied as electrocatalysts for electrocatalytic oxygen evolution in alkaline media, showing improved performance compared to nanoparticles or EISA-derived mesoporous NiFe2O4.
Helgert et al. (Sun,) studied this question.