The Pyrolysis of Ferrocene to Iron Oxide, Pyrolytic Engineering of Photocatalytic Nano films on Conductive Glass

Abstract

The conversion of ferrocene to iron oxide (Fe₂O₃) nano film on the substrate of fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) was carried through a simple and low cost pyrolysis route. Ferrocene residues were decomposed by heating in air up to 500 ^oC to produce iron oxide thin films. The films prepared were characterized by UV/Visible absorption, FT-IR, EDX and SEM. Images of SEM demonstrate that well-adherent, spherical (Fe₂O₃) nanostructures are homogeneous and gathered into a nest-like network. To determine photocatalytic performance, degradation of methylene blue (MB) in the presence of natural sunlight was observed. Of all the samples, the film produced with 0.125 g of ferrocene (S2) was the most active, reaching 75 percent MB degradation in 30 minutes. These findings indicate that ferrocene pyrolysis is scalable and a process that is related to the environment and can be used to formulate (Fe₂O₃) nanostructured films that can be easily utilized in photocatalytic and environmental remediation.