Sea-urchin-like iron oxide nanostructures for water treatment.

To obtain adsorbents with high capacities for removing heavy metals and organic pollutants capable of quick magnetic separation, we fabricated unique sea-urchin-like magnetic iron oxide (mixed γ-Fe2O3/Fe3O4 phase) nanostructures (called u-MFN) with large surface areas (94.1m(2) g(-1)) and strong magnetic properties (57.9 emu g(-1)) using a simple growth process and investigated their potential applications in water treatment.