Controllable conversion of Prussian blue@yeast bio-template into 3D cage-like magnetic Fe3O4@N-doped carbon absorbent and its cohesive regeneration by persulfate activation

Si Chen; Bo Bai; Yunhua He; Na Hu; Honglun Wang; Yourui Suo

doi:10.1039/c8ra08886a

Controllable conversion of Prussian blue@yeast bio-template into 3D cage-like magnetic Fe₃O₄@N-doped carbon absorbent and its cohesive regeneration by persulfate activation

RSC Adv. 2019 Jan 8;9(2):1151-1164. doi: 10.1039/c8ra08886a. eCollection 2019 Jan 2.

Authors

Si Chen^{1

2}, Bo Bai^{2

3

4}, Yunhua He^{1

2}, Na Hu^{3

4}, Honglun Wang^{3

4}, Yourui Suo^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Subsurface Hydrology and Ecological Effects in Arid Region of the Ministry of Education, Chang'an University No. 126 Yanta Road Xi'an 710054 Shaanxi China.
² College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Chang'an University Xi'an 710054 P. R. China baibochina@163.com +86 29 82339961 +86 29 82339052.
³ Key Laboratory of Tibetan Medicine Research, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Xining 810008 China.
⁴ Qinghai Provincial Key Laboratory of Tibetan Medicine Research Xining 810001 P. R. China.

Abstract

A multitude of heteroatom-doped carbon adsorbents have been explored to cope with ever-growing organic pollution. However, development of these advanced carbon materials with adequate activity and stability remains challenging. Herein, unique 3D cage-like magnetic N-doped Fe₃O₄@C adsorbents were rationally constructed by a one-step pyrolysis of Prussian blue@yeast (PB@yeast) bio-templates. By using yeast as an available biological support, the prepared Fe₃O₄@C hybrids were demonstrated to provide a sufficient number of Fe, N and C atoms for the novel cage-like microstructures, making them a new type of Fe, N co-doped carbon absorbents with a facile preparation procedure and remarkable adsorption behavior. Rhodamine B (RhB) removal indicated that the prepared N-doped Fe₃O₄@C adsorbents displayed high adsorption capabilities in a near-neutral solution, and Fe₃O₄@C (1 : 0.11) exhibited a maximum adsorption capability of 257.06 mg g^-1. More importantly, spent N-doped Fe₃O₄@C absorbents, which could be recovered by magnetic separation and cohesive persulfate (PS) activated photo-Fenton regeneration, showed excellent adsorption reusability and high stability even after 5 cycles. Overall, this paper presents a simple method for fabrication of a 3D cage-like magnetic N-doped Fe₃O₄@C adsorbent, which provides a significant guidance for the study of Fe, N co-doped carbon adsorbents towards dye wastewater treatment.