Polymer‐Assisted Direct and Rapid Microwave Synthesis of Mesoporous Binary and Ternary Metal Oxides for Electrocatalytic Water Oxidation

Abstract A novel quick and facile polymer‐assisted microwave synthesis route to prepare mesoporous binary metal oxides α‐Fe ₂ O ₃ and α‐Mn ₂ O ₃ and spinel‐type ferrites NiFe ₂ O ₄ and ZnFe ₂ O ₄ is presented, which can potentially be applied for many other mixed metal oxides. The presented synthesis only needs 15–30 min, much shorter than conventional approaches for mesoporous materials. Thorough characterization of the materials is performed by Powder X‐Ray Diffraction (PXRD), Raman spectroscopy, energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (EDXS), nitrogen physisorption analysis, mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP), diffuse reflectance infrared fourier transform (DRIFT) spectroscopy, UV–Vis‐spectroscopy, X‐Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and scanning (SEM) as well as transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and selected area electron diffraction (SAED). Furthermore, mesoporous α‐Mn ₂ O ₃ and NiFe ₂ O ₄ are applied as electrocatalysts for electrocatalytic oxygen evolution in alkaline media, showing improved performance compared to nanoparticles or EISA‐derived mesoporous NiFe ₂ O ₄ .