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Preparation of transition metal composite graphite felt cathode for efficient heterogeneous electro-Fenton process

  • Advances and trends in Advanced Oxidation processes
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Abstract

A composite graphite felt (GF) modified with transition metal was fabricated and used as cathode in heterogeneous electro-Fenton (EF) for methyl orange (MO) degradation. Characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), the morphology and surface physicochemical properties of the cathodes after modification were observed considerably changed. After loading metals, the current response became higher, the accumulation of H2O2 and the degradation efficiency of MO were improved. Under the same conditions, GF-Co had the highest catalytic activity for electro-reduction of O2 to H2O2 and MO degradation. At pH 3, 99 % of MO degradation efficiency was obtained using GF-Co after 120 min treatment and even at initial pH 9, 82 % of that was obtained. TOC removal efficiency reached 93.8 % using GF-Co at pH 3 after 120 min treatment while that was 12.3 % using GF. After ten-time runs, the mineralization ratio of the GF-Co was still 89.5 %, suggesting that GF-Co was very promising for wastewater treatment. The addition of isopropanol proved that ·OH played an important role in degradation of MO.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 21273120 and 51178225), National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2013AA065901 and 2013AA06A205), and National Special S&T Project on Water Pollution Control and Management (2015ZX07203-011).

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  1. Key Laboratory of Pollution Process and Environmental Criteria, Ministry of Education, Tianjin, China

    Liang Liang, Fangke Yu, Yiran An, Mengmeng Liu & Minghua Zhou

  2. Key Laboratory of Urban Ecology Environmental Remediation and Pollution Control, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Liang Liang, Fangke Yu, Yiran An, Mengmeng Liu & Minghua Zhou

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  1. Liang Liang
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  2. Fangke Yu
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Correspondence to Minghua Zhou.

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Liang, L., Yu, F., An, Y. et al. Preparation of transition metal composite graphite felt cathode for efficient heterogeneous electro-Fenton process. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 1122–1132 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-7389-3

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