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Aqueous synthesis of mesoporous FeNbO4 for efficient degradation of organic contaminants in sunlight assisted advanced oxidation process at near neutral pH

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Abstract

The development of catalysts for treating hazardous organic effluents contained in wastewater via the light-induced advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) has been at the forefront of recent research. The heterogeneous photo-Fenton process is one of the most effective AOPs used in the abatement of wastewater pollutants. However, there is a frequent requirement for acidic pH and ultraviolet (UV) irradiation, both of which hinder its industrial viability. Thus, there is a demand for a stable solar light-activated photo-Fenton catalyst capable of operating under near-neutral pH. This is the first demonstration of the mesoporous FeNbO4 used for solar-driven photocatalytic reaction under an oxidative environment at near neutral pH. The present work reports the preparation of pure-phase mesoporous FeNbO4 with a high specific surface area through a wet chemical technique. The cationic surfactant tetradecyl trimethylammonium bromide (TTAB) has been employed as the structure-directing agent in the present synthesis that produces a mesoporous structure with a surface area of 97 m2/g, an average pore diameter of ~ 6.5 nm and an average pore volume of 0.139 cm3/g. The synthesized mesoporous FeNbO4 has been characterized by thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrophotometer (FTIR), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), Branauer-Emmett-Teller analysis (BET), transmission electron microscope (TEM), and UV-vis spectroscopy. Our synthesized material exhibits high activity towards the degradation of organic dyes in the presence of H2O2 under natural sunlight irradiation in an optimized catalytic scheme. The complete degradation of the mixture of dyes was achieved by direct sunlight irradiation at near natural pH (5.7) in the presence of a catalyst (3 g/L) and 50 mM H2O2 for 1 h. The present article also reports the measurement of its point zero surface charge and the role of reactive species in the degradation of organic dyes. The synthesized material has been found to be a promising, stable, and recyclable photo-Fenton catalyst for the removal of organic pollutants from wastewater under solar light irradiation and near neutral pH.

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Acknowledgements

N.G. and B.C. would like to acknowledge the TMA Pai research fellowship fund of Sikkim Manipal University for providing financial assistance. SKB would like to acknowledge the TMA Pai research grant of Sikkim Manipal University for financial support to this research project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Sikkim Manipal University, Rangpo, Sikkim, India

    Neha Gupta & Soumya Kanti Biswas

  2. Department of Chemistry, School of Basic Sciences, Swami Vivekananda University, Kolkata, India

    Arpita Sarkar

  3. Department of Physics, Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Sikkim Manipal University, Rangpo, Sikkim, India

    Bibek Chettri

  4. Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Sikkim Manipal University, Rangpo, Sikkim, India

    Bikash Sharma

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  1. Neha Gupta
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Contributions

NG: Synthesis and execution of photocatalytic experiments, manuscript preparation. AS: Conceptualization, synthesis, analysis, manuscript preparation. BC: DFT calculation. BS: DFT calculation, analysis, and manuscript preparation (DFT part). SKB: Conceptualization, result analysis, manuscript preparation and supervision of the work.

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Gupta, N., Sarkar, A., Chettri, B. et al. Aqueous synthesis of mesoporous FeNbO4 for efficient degradation of organic contaminants in sunlight assisted advanced oxidation process at near neutral pH. J Porous Mater 31, 597–610 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10934-023-01537-w

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