Biosynthesis of iron phosphate nanopowders

Abstract Iron phosphate nanopowders with flake morphologies have been synthesized by precipitation method with yeast cells as a biologic template, which provide the nucleation sites to regulate growth of FePO 4 nanoparticles. XRD and TG-DSC show that pure and homogenous FePO 4 crystal is synthesized at 543 °C. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) show that as-dried iron phosphate nanopowders contain a lot of organic matter and aggregate to yield clusters. The sample calcined at 600 °C shows flake shapes with length of 500–600 nm and width of 200–300 nm. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) is used to analyze the combination linkage of chemical bonds in organic-inorganic hybrid iron phosphate.