Biomolecule-assisted synthesis of hierarchical multilayered boehmite and alumina nanosheets for enhanced molybdenum adsorption

Saptiama, I.*; Kaneti, Y. V.*; Yuliarto, B.*; Kumada, Hiroaki*; Tsuchiya, Kunihiko ; Fujita, Yoshitaka   ; Malgras, V.*; Fukumitsu, Nobuyoshi*; Sakae, Takeji*; Hatano, Kentaro*; Ariga, Katsuhiko*; Sugahara, Yoshiyuki*; Yamauchi, Yusuke*

The effective utilization of various biomolecules for creating a series of mesoporous boehmite (-AlOOH) and gamma-alumina (-AlO) nanosheets with unique hierarchical multilayered structures is demonstrated. The nature and concentration of the biomolecules strongly influence the degree of the crystallinity, the morphology, and the textural properties of the resulting -AlOOH and -AlO nanosheets, allowing for easy tuning. The hierarchical -AlOOH and -AlO multilayered nanosheets synthesized by using biomolecules exhibit enhanced crystallinity, improved particle separation, and well-defined multilayered structures compared to those obtained without biomolecules. More impressively, these -AlOOH and -AlO nanosheets possess high surface areas up to 425 and 371 m/g, respectively, due to their mesoporous nature and hierarchical multilayered structure. When employed for molybdenum adsorption toward medical radioisotope production, the hierarchical -AlO multilayered nanosheets exhibit Mo adsorption capacities of 33.140.8mg-Mo/g.