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Nanostructured manganese oxide on silica aerogel: a new catalyst toward water oxidation

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Abstract

Herein we report on the synthesis and characterization of nano-sized Mn oxide/silica aerogel with low density as a good catalyst toward water oxidation. The composite was synthesized by a simple and low-cost hydrothermal procedure. In the next step, we studied the composite in the presence of cerium(IV) ammonium nitrate and photo-produced Ru(bpy) 3+3 as a water-oxidizing catalyst. The low-density composite is a good Mn-based catalyst with turnover frequencies of ~0.3 and 0.5 (mmol O2/(mol Mn·s)) in the presence of Ru(bpy) 3+3 and cerium(IV) ammonium nitrate, respectively. In addition to the water-oxidizing activities of the composite under different conditions, its self-healing reaction in the presence of cerium(IV) ammonium nitrate was also studied.

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Acknowledgments

MMN, SS, and SM are grateful to the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences. This work was supported by Grant-in-Aids for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education of Japan (24370025 and 26220801) to TT. SIA was supported by grant from the Russian Science Foundation (No: 14-14-00039).

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Correspondence to Mohammad Mahdi Najafpour or Suleyman I. Allakhverdiev.

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Najafpour, M.M., Salimi, S., Madadkhani, S. et al. Nanostructured manganese oxide on silica aerogel: a new catalyst toward water oxidation. Photosynth Res 130, 225–235 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-016-0247-9

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