Waste toner-derived porous iron oxide pigments with enhanced catalytic degradation property

Shanthi Balasubramanian; Saravanan Kanagarathinam; Ravichandran Cingaram; Venkatachalapathy Bakthavachalam; Sathiyanarayanan Kulathu Iyer; Saravanan Rajendran; Karthikeyan Natesan Sundaramurthy; Suresh Ranganathan

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2022.114695

Waste toner-derived porous iron oxide pigments with enhanced catalytic degradation property

Environ Res. 2023 Jan 1;216(Pt 3):114695. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.114695. Epub 2022 Nov 6.

Authors

Shanthi Balasubramanian¹, Saravanan Kanagarathinam¹, Ravichandran Cingaram¹, Venkatachalapathy Bakthavachalam², Sathiyanarayanan Kulathu Iyer³, Saravanan Rajendran⁴, Karthikeyan Natesan Sundaramurthy⁵, Suresh Ranganathan⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Easwari Engineering College, Chennai 600089, Tamil Nadu, India.
² Department of Chemistry, Easwari Engineering College, Chennai 600089, Tamil Nadu, India; Karpagam Academy of Higher Education, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.
³ Department of Chemistry, School of Advanced Sciences, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT University), Vellore, 632014, India.
⁴ Departamento de Ingeniería Mecánica, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Tarapacá, Avda. General Velásquez, 1775, Arica, Chile; Saveetha School of Engineering, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Chennai, 600095, India; University Centre for Research & Development, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chandigarh University, Mohaliz, Punjab, 140413, India.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, Easwari Engineering College, Chennai 600089, Tamil Nadu, India. Electronic address: karthikeyan.ns12@gmail.com.
⁶ Departamento de Ingeniería Mecánica, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Tarapacá, Avda. General Velásquez, 1775, Arica, Chile. Electronic address: sureshinorg@gmail.com.

PMID: 36351473
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.114695

Abstract

'Wealth from Waste' is an emerging concept, since it leads an effective waste treatment and waste recyclability. On the other hand, cost effective production iron oxide (IO) nanomaterials is still needed to develop, owing to their wide applications. Herein, we proposed a simple direct calcination method to prepare porous IO (Fe₃O₄ and Fe₂O₃) nanomaterials from waste toner powder. Characterization techniques reveal that a structural change happened from Fe₃O₄ to γ-Fe₂O₃ and γ-Fe₂O₃ to α-Fe₂O₃ at the calcination temperature of 500 °C and 700 °C respectively. Consequently, optical (band gap) and magnetic parameters of IO samples were significantly varied. The pigment characteristics of the IO samples were evaluated using Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (CIE) analysis. IO900 sample has shown good brown-red coloration (L* = 43.11, a* = 13.26 and b* = 5.69) and it also exhibited good stability in acidic and basic conditions. Practical applicability of IO pigments were also tested by mixing with plaster of paris (PP) powder. Further, porous IO samples were also used as catalysts in the reductive degradation of methyl orange (MO) dye in presence of excess sodium borohydride (NaBH₄). IO, prepared at 900 °C exhibited ∼99.9% reduction efficiency within 40 min. Recycling experiments indicated that IO900 possess good stability up to seven cycles. The present porous IO samples will become potential in pigment and environmental remediation.

Keywords: Catalysis; Iron oxide; Methyl orange; Pigment; Toner powder.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Catalysis
Ferric Compounds* / chemistry
Porosity
Powders

Substances

ferric oxide
Powders
Ferric Compounds