Novel RGO/α-FeOOH supported catalyst for Fenton oxidation of phenol at a wide pH range using solar-light-driven irradiation

Ying Wang; Jiasheng Fang; John C Crittenden; Chanchan Shen

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.01.041

Novel RGO/α-FeOOH supported catalyst for Fenton oxidation of phenol at a wide pH range using solar-light-driven irradiation

J Hazard Mater. 2017 May 5:329:321-329. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.01.041. Epub 2017 Jan 23.

Authors

Ying Wang¹, Jiasheng Fang², John C Crittenden³, Chanchan Shen⁴

Affiliations

¹ The Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, PR China. Electronic address: yingwang@bnu.edu.cn.
² The Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, PR China; School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southeast University, Jiangsu Optoelectronic Functional Materials and Engineering Laboratory, Nanjing 211189, PR China. Electronic address: fangfangcanfly@163.com.
³ School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0595, United States. Electronic address: John.Crittenden@ce.gatech.edu.
⁴ The Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, PR China.

PMID: 28183021
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.01.041

Abstract

A novel solar-light-driven (SLD) Fenton catalyst was developed by reducing the ferrous-ion onto graphene oxide (GO) and forming reduced graphene oxide/α-FeOOH composites (RF) via in-situ induced self-assembly process. The RF was supported on several mesoporous supports (i.e., Al-MCM-41, MCM-41 and γ-Al₂O₃). The activity, stability and energy use for phenol oxidation were systematically studied for a wide pH range. Furthermore, the catalytic mechanism at acid and alkaline aqueous conditions was also elucidated. The results showed that Fe(II) was reduced onto GO nanosheets and α-FeOOH crystals were formed during the self-assembly process. Compared with Fenton reaction without SLD irradiation, the visible light irradiation not only dramatically accelerated the rate of Fenton-based reactions, but also extended the operating pH for the Fenton reaction (from 4.0 to 8.0). The phenol oxidation on RF supported catalysts was fitting well with the pseudo-first-order kinetics, and needed low initiating energy, insensitive to the reacting temperature changes (273-318K). The Al-MCM-41 supported RF was a more highly energy-efficient catalyst with the prominent catalytic activity at wide operating pHs. During the reaction, OH radicals were generated by the SLD irradiation from H₂O₂ reduction and H₂O oxidation in the Fe^Ⅱ/Fe^Ⅲ and Fe^Ⅲ/Fe^Ⅳ cycling processes.

Keywords: Heterogeneous photo-Fenton; Mesoporous support; Phenol; Reduced graphene oxide; α-FeOOH.