Copper-promoted heterogeneous Fenton-like oxidation of Rhodamine B over Fe3O4 magnetic nanocatalysts at mild conditions

• Published in: Environmental science and pollution research international Vol. 28; no. 16; pp. 19959 - 19968
• Main Authors: Du, Wei, Huang, Ran, Huang, Xuanlin, Chen, Rong, Chen, Fengxi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-04-2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adsorption; Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Carcinogens; Catalysts; Chemical oxygen demand; Copper; Decoloring; Decolorization; Dopants; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecotoxicology; Environment; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental Health; Environmental science; Hydrogen peroxide; Inorganic salts; Investigations; Iron oxides; Magnetite; Monte Carlo simulation; Nanocatalysis; Nanoparticles; Organic matter; Oxidation; Particle size; Pollutants; Research Article; Rhodamine; Salts; Simulation; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Magnetite; Rhodamine B; Copper; Ionothermal synthesis; Heterogeneous Fenton-like oxidation; Monte-Carlo simulation
• ISSN: 0944-1344; 1614-7499
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-020-12264-z

Rhodamine B (RhB) is used in various industries and its effluent must be effectively treated because of its harmful and carcinogenic nature. In this work, ionothermally synthesized Cu-doped Fe
3
O
4
magnetic nanoparticles (Cu–Fe
3
O
4
MNPs) were found to be a highly efficient heterogeneous Fenton-like catalyst for complete decolorization of the RhB solution with H
2
O
2
at pH ~ 7 and 25 °C. The effects of the catalyst loading, initial concentrations of RhB and H
2
O
2
, co-existing natural organic matter and inorganic salts, reaction temperature, and radical scavengers on the catalytic performance of Cu–Fe
3
O
4
were investigated. Monte-Carlo simulations revealed that copper dopants facilitated the activation of H
2
O
2
via adopting a terminal end-on adsorption mode and increased collision frequency by bringing the RhB molecules closer to H
2
O
2
and the magnetite surface. These theoretical calculations provide new insight into the promotional effect of copper dopants in magnetite at molecular level.