LAUSR

Abstract Metal oxides are promising compounds for water-splitting systems toward hydrogen production. One of the most important methods to prepare nanosized metal oxides is the decomposition of metal complexes. Herein, different Mn oxides from the decomposition of β-cyclodextrin-Mn complex in different calcined temperatures were studied by scanning electron microscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis, X-ray diffraction and a few electrochemical methods. Using scanning electron microscopy, we propose a mechanism to answer to the question that how is Mn oxide formed by the decomposition of β-cyclodextrin-Mn complex. In the next step, usual chemometric methods, principal component analysis (PCA) and multivariate curve resolution-alternating least squares (MCR-ALS), were used to not only determine the number of components and data visualization, but also examine the square wave voltammograms of obtained Mn oxides from the decomposition of β-cyclodextrin-Mn complex. Water-oxidizing activities of the compounds under the presence of photo-produced Ru(bpy) 3 3+ were also considered.