Chitosan Stabilised Iron Containing Nanoparticles For Photocatalytic Hydrogen Generation

Metal nonoparticles stabilized by polymers is emerging as a new class of materials having entirely new physico-chemical properties as that of bulk and atom both. Stabilizers play important role in protecting the nanoparticles and also contributes in improvising the overall surface area. Chitosan, a natural polymer is selected as a stabilizer for the synthesis of iron containing nanoparticles. These nonoparticles are thoroughly characterized by using BETsurface area, FTIR, TEM and XPS. TEM image is showing well dispersed nanofibers with average size of 13nm. XPS data supports the formation of Fe2O3 type structure with O1s binding energy at 534.5 eV and Fe 2P3/2 and Fe 2P1/2 binding energies at 712eV and 723.2 eV. BET Surface area value is 36.72m2 /g with pore size of 145.16 and pore volume of 0.1332 cm3 /g. This synthesized nanomaterial was evaluated for photocatalytic hydrogen generation via water splitting reaction. Iron containing nanoparticles are showing excellent photocatalytic activity with hydrogen generation yield of 55.5 mmoles h-1g -1 of photocatalyst. The nanoparticles are magnetically retrievable and hence can be separated effectively from heterogeneous system.