Preparation of mesopourous Fe3O4 nanoparticle with template reagent: Tannic acid and the catalytic performance

Abstract We report a one-pot hydrothermal method for novel mesoporous Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles (NPs) preparation based on the reduction of ferric chloride with bifunctional agent: tannic acid (TA). TA acted both as template agent to obtain the mesoporous structure and functional agent to modify Fe 3 O 4 NPs. The facile controlled process resulted in a relatively high surface area (99.5 m 2  g −1 ) and good monodispersity with average diameter ∼200 nm of the synthetic nanoparticles. The high saturation magnetization (54.7 emu g −1 ) of the nanoparticles made it can be separated quickly from solution media via a magnet. The unique mesoporous structure of the Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles possessed high active site, and this was proved by studying the catalytic properties through Fenton catalytic degradation with hydrogen peroxide as a model reaction system. As a result, the tannic acid templated mesoporous Fe 3 O 4 NPs (TA–Fe 3 O 4 NPs) showed the very efficient catalytic properties for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) accelerated by the functionalization of TA.