Facile fabrication of ZrO2 hollow porous microspheres with yeast as bio-templates

ZrO2 hollow porous microspheres have been fabricated successfully using living yeast cells as bio-templates through a facile ageing process at lower crystallizing temperature. XRD, SEM, FT-IR and N2 adsorption–desorption were used to characterize ZrO2 hollow microspheres. The results showed that the inorganic–organic hybrid hollow microspheres were fabricated at 100 °C and ZrO2 hollow microspheres with tetragonal phase and porous structure were obtained at 300 °C. The crystallization temperature of ZrO2 decreased obviously due to the inducting of bio-molecules. The as-prepared hollow microspheres are approximately ellipsoid. The shells of these hollow microspheres are porous, which are composed of some nanoparticles with size of ∼20 nm. The formation mechanism of ZrO2 hollow microspheres was proposed and discussed tentatively.

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► The yeasts would reproduce prolifically at appropriate environment.
► ZrO2 core–shell and solid microspheres are synthesized when the reaction condition is changed.
► The reactive functional groups on the cell wall are able to bind mental ions.
► The inorganic–organic hybridization precursors of ZrO2 are formed drying at 100 °C.
► At the end, ZrO2 hollow microspheres with the porous shell are formed by calcination.