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Enhanced photo-Fenton-like process over Z-scheme CoFe2O4/g-C3N4 Heterostructures under natural indoor light

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Abstract

Low-cost catalysts with high activity and stability toward producing strongly oxidative species are extremely desirable, but their development still remains a big challenge. Here, we report a novel strategy for the synthesis of a magnetic CoFe2O4/C3N4 hybrid via a simple self-assembly method. The CoFe2O4/C3N4 was utilized as a photo-Fenton-like catalyst for degradation of organic dyes in the presence of H2O2 under natural indoor light irradiation, a green and energy-saving approach for environmental cleaning. It was found the CoFe2O4/C3N4 hybrid with a CoFe2O4: g-C3N4 mass ratio of 2:1 can completely degrade Rhodamine B nearly 100 % within 210 min under room-light irradiation. The effects of the amount of H2O2 (0.01–0.5 M), initial dye concentration (5–20 mg/L), solution pH (3.08-10.09), fulvic acid concentration (5–50 mg/L), different dyes and catalyst stability on the organic dye degradation were investigated. The introduction of CoFe2O4 on g-C3N4 produced an enhanced separation efficiency of photogenerated electron − hole pairs by a Z-scheme mechanism between the interfaces of g-C3N4 and CoFe2O4, leading to an excellent activity as compared with either g-C3N4 or CoFe2O4 and their mixture. This study demonstrates an efficient way to construct the low-cost magnetic CoFe2O4/C3N4 heterojunction as a typical Z-scheme system in environmental remediation.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the financial supports from China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (NO. 2015M570547, 2016T90585), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 51372062) and Undergraduate Training Program for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (No. 2015CXCYS066). We also acknowledge the Australian Research Council for partial support (DP150103026).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Anhui Key Laboratory of Controllable Chemical Reaction & Material Chemical Engineering, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Tunxi Road 193, Hefei, 230009, China

    Yunjin Yao, Guodong Wu, Fang Lu, Yi Hu, Jie Zhang, Wanzheng Huang & Fengyu Wei

  2. CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, School of Chemistry and Material Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Yunjin Yao

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA, 6845, Australia

    Shaobin Wang

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  1. Yunjin Yao
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  2. Guodong Wu
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  3. Fang Lu
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  4. Shaobin Wang
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  5. Yi Hu
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Correspondence to Yunjin Yao or Fengyu Wei.

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Yao, Y., Wu, G., Lu, F. et al. Enhanced photo-Fenton-like process over Z-scheme CoFe2O4/g-C3N4 Heterostructures under natural indoor light. Environ Sci Pollut Res 23, 21833–21845 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-7329-2

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