Synergistic effect of Fe doping and oxygen vacancy in AgIO3 for effectively degrading organic pollutants under natural sunlight

Miaofei Sun; Sajjad Ali; Chengyin Liu; Chunhui Dai; Xin Liu; Chao Zeng

doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2024.123325

Synergistic effect of Fe doping and oxygen vacancy in AgIO₃ for effectively degrading organic pollutants under natural sunlight

Environ Pollut. 2024 Mar 1:344:123325. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2024.123325. Epub 2024 Jan 6.

Authors

Miaofei Sun¹, Sajjad Ali², Chengyin Liu³, Chunhui Dai⁴, Xin Liu¹, Chao Zeng⁵

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Advanced Materials, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Key Lab of Fluorine and Silicon for Energy Materials and Chemistry of Ministry of Education, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, 330022, China.
² Energy, Water, and Environment Lab, College of Humanities and Sciences, Prince Sultan University, Riyadh, 11586, Saudi Arabia.
³ School of Environmental and Material Engineering, Yantai University, Yantai, 264005, Shandong, China.
⁴ Jiangxi Key Laboratory for Mass Spectrometry and Instrumentation, East China University of Technology, Nanchang, 330013, China.
⁵ Institute of Advanced Materials, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Key Lab of Fluorine and Silicon for Energy Materials and Chemistry of Ministry of Education, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, 330022, China. Electronic address: czeng@jxnu.edu.cn.

PMID: 38190871
DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2024.123325

Abstract

In this work, a series of hydrogenated Fe-doped AgIO₃ (FAI-x) catalysts are synthesized for photodegrading diverse azo dyes and antibiotics. Under the irradiation of natural sunlight with a light intensity of ∼60 mW/cm², the optimum FAI-10 exhibits a considerable rate constant for decomposing methyl orange (MO) of 0.067 min^-1, about 7.4 times higher than that of AgIO₃ (0.009 min^-1), and 24.6% and 83.8% of MO can be decomposed over AgIO₃ and FAI-10 after irradiation for 40 min. In the amplification photodegradation experiments with using 0.5 g catalyst and 400 mL MO dye solution (10 mg/L), FAI-10 possesses greatly higher photoreactivity to common semiconductors (ZnO, TiO₂, In₂O₃ and Bi₂MoO₆), and the photodegradation rates over FAI-10 are 92%. Particularly, the FAI-10 shows superior stability, the activity of which remains unaltered after 8 continuous cycles. Foreign ions and water bodies have slight effect on the activity of FAI-10, but the MO degradation rates are decreased by adjusting pH values, especially when pH = 11 because of the strong electrostatic repulsion between MO and FAI-10. FAI-10 can also effectively decompose another azo dye (rhodamine B (RhB)) and diverse antibiotics (sulflsoxazole (SOX), chlortetracycline hydrochloride (CTC), tetracycline hydrochloride (TC) and ofloxacin (OFX)). The activity enhancement mechanism of FAI-10 has been systemically investigated and is ascribed to the promoted photo-absorption, charge separation and transfer efficiency, and affinity of organic pollutants, owing to the synergistic effect of Fe doping and oxygen vacancy (Ov). The photocatalytic mechanisms and process for decomposing MO are verified and proposed based on radical trapping experiments and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). This work opens an avenue for the fabrication of effective photocatalysts toward water purification.

Keywords: AgIO(3); Fe doping; Natural sunlight; Oxygen vacancies; Photocatalysis.

MeSH terms

Anti-Bacterial Agents
Azo Compounds*
Catalysis
Environmental Pollutants*
Light
Oxygen / chemistry
Sunlight

Substances

Environmental Pollutants
Oxygen
Anti-Bacterial Agents
methyl orange
Azo Compounds