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Floatable SnO2/EPE catalyst derived from waste expand aple poly ephylene for rapid degradation of rhodamine B dye

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Abstract

The floatable photocatalysts were a new strategy towards real-world applications of photocatalytic degradation, which exhibited high utilization and recovery rate. Expand aple poly ephylene (EPE) was widely known as packaging fill materials, lots of used EPE as rubbish increased environment pollution. As it happens, EPE had the characteristics of light weight, abundant capillaries, which can be used as the carriers to prepare floatable photocatalysts. EPE/SnO2 was prepared through coprecipitation and low-temperature oxidation technique. In addition, the influence of Sn-doping amount, pH value, catalyst loading, the cationic and anionic on the photocatalytic efficiency toward rhodamine B (RhB) was investigated. Almost of the 50 mL RhB (15 mg/L) was decomposed within 50 min under visible-light. Importantly, the removal rate of the floatable photocatalysts EPE/SnO2 was fourteen times higher than pure SnO2 at 50 min. The removal efficiencies of EPE/SnO2 for RhB in tap water, river water and reservoir water were above 98% within 50 min. Moreover, the degradation efficiency of RhB still remained 96.3% after 10 recycling runs. Compared to the catalysts recently reported, the reusability of EPE/SnO2 was the highest. According to the free radical trapping experiment, 1O2, O2• − and h+ were confirmed the main reactive oxygen species participating the photocatalytic degradation over RhB.

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Funding

This work was supported by The Ningxia Natural Science Foundation Project (2021AAC03242), the Engineering Research Center of Liupanshan (HGZD22-07).

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  1. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Ningxia Normal University, Guyuan, 756000, China

    Z. L. Li, S. Y. Li, X. R. Liu, Z. R. Zhang, S. Y. Yuan, X. N. Qi & Z. Q. Wu

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Contributions

All the persons have made substantial contributions to the work reported. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ZLL and XNQ. Material preparation was performed by SYL. Data processing was performed by SYL, ZRZ and SYY. Writing-Reviewing was performed by SYL and ZQW and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Li, Z.L., Li, S.Y., Liu, X.R. et al. Floatable SnO2/EPE catalyst derived from waste expand aple poly ephylene for rapid degradation of rhodamine B dye. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1236 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10562-z

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