Facile Synthesis of Porous Flower‐Like Co 3 O 4 ‐SiO 2 Composite for Catalytic Decoloration of Rhodamine B

Flower‐like Co 3 O 4 ‐SiO 2 composite (FCSC) is prepared by a facile one‐pot two‐step solution synthesis followed by calcination. In our method, metalic Co nanoparticles are used as the starting material, which are oxidized to the flower‐like Co(OH) 2 structure in the early stage of silica coating. The silica shell effectively keeps the 3D flower‐like structure from collapsing and also prevents the Co 3 O 4 becoming large during calcination. The as‐prepared FCSC is investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM), X‐ray diffraction (XRD), X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and N 2 adsorption/desorption measurements and a plausible formation mechanism is proposed. The final product has a large sepcific surface area of 347.6 m 2 ⋅ g −1 which shows superior catalytic performance in catalytic decoloration of rhodamine B with peroxymonosulfate (PMS), offering great promise for water treatment.