Tailoring surface morphology of heterostructured iron-based Fenton catalyst for highly improved catalytic activity

Shun-Xing Liang; Qiaoyue Zhang; Zhe Jia; Wenchang Zhang; Weimin Wang; Lai-Chang Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2020.07.138

Tailoring surface morphology of heterostructured iron-based Fenton catalyst for highly improved catalytic activity

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2021 Jan 1;581(Pt B):860-873. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.07.138. Epub 2020 Jul 30.

Authors

Shun-Xing Liang¹, Qiaoyue Zhang², Zhe Jia³, Wenchang Zhang⁴, Weimin Wang⁵, Lai-Chang Zhang⁶

Affiliations

¹ Technical Chemistry I and Center for Nanointegration Duisburg-Essen (CENIDE), University of Duisburg-Essen, Universitaetsstrasse 7, Essen 45141, Germany; School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, 270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup, Perth, WA 6027, Australia. Electronic address: shunxing.liang@uni-due.de.
² School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, 270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup, Perth, WA 6027, Australia.
³ School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
⁴ Ji'an Ecological Environment Monitoring Center of Jiangxi Province, Ji'an, Jiangxi Province 343000, China.
⁵ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong Province 250061, China. Electronic address: weiminw@sdu.edu.cn.
⁶ School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, 270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup, Perth, WA 6027, Australia. Electronic address: l.zhang@ecu.edu.au.

PMID: 32818686
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.07.138

Abstract

Due to the great limitation of glass forming ability, precisely controlling the chemical compositions of metallic glasses (MGs) still dramatically inhibits their widespread applications in wastewater remediation. Here, heterostructured catalysts were exploited by rapid annealing of Fe-based MGs and subsequent ball milling (BM) as advanced alternatives for amorphous counterparts in Fenton-like process. It was found that the surface characteristics tailored by ball milling enable more chemically active sites due to its enlarged specific surface area, surface defects and nanosized amorphous oxide layer that significantly enhance surface-catalyzed reaction in Fenton-like process. On the other hand, high-temperature annealing induced grain growth and electrochemical potential difference induced effect of galvanic cells in multiple crystalline phases (e.g. α-Fe (Si), Fe₂B and Fe₃Si) further provide an important contribution to high efficiency of electron transfer in heterostructured catalysts. Since the multiphase heterostructure is easily formed by a high-temperature annealing of MGs/amorphous-crystalline composite alloys, this work aims to provide an advanced alternative of MG catalyst without the elemental limitation of glass forming ability for wastewater remediation.

Keywords: Crystallization; Environmental catalysts; Heterostructure; Metallic glasses; Surface modification.