Abstract
Visible-light-driven magnetic heterojunction as a promising photocatalysts has received much attention in environmental remediation. In this work, novel Z-scheme heterojunction MnZnFe2O4@Ag3PO4 (MZFO@APO) magnetic photocatalysts with excellent visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity are successfully constructed and characterized. The photocatalytic activity for phenol degradation is measured, and photodegradation mechanism is investigated with EPR, radical trapping experiments, and LC–MS. It turns out that the heterojunction introduced MZFO exhibits good adsorption effect on visible light and the direct Z-scheme bandgap alignment of MZFO and APO significantly improves charge separation and electron transfer, outperforming that of pure APO. MZFO@APO-40% with 40% APO content shows the rapid photodegradation performance, obtaining a 100% removal efficiency of phenol (25 mg L−1) after 12-min visible light irradiation, and its kinetic constants are approximately 25.3 and 4.9 times higher than that of P25 TiO2 and pure APO, respectively. Especially, MZFO@APO-40% also possesses a high magnetic separation property and can be efficiently reused for 5 cycles. Additionally, EPR and radical trapping experiments confirm that h+, O2−, and 1O2 are the main active species in the photocatalytic process. Hydroquinone and small molecular organic acids such as maleic acid and oxalic acid are detected by LC–MS, which further indicates that the pathway of phenol degradation involves hydroxylation, open-ring reactions, and mineralization reactions. The novel addition of MZFO in photocatalyst construction has the potential to promote its application in environmental remediation.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Shiyanjia (www.shiyanjia.com) for the support of EPR analysis.
Funding
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 21866031), Key Research and Development Program of Shaanxi Province (no. 2022NY-058), and the National Undergraduate Training Program for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (no. 202110719008).
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Hua Huang and Xin Tao: conceptualization, investigation, writing—original draft, investigation. Zhirui Niu: funding acquisition, writing—review and editing. Xiaoqian Qin, Jialu Ren, Baoqin Shan, and Yu Liu: resources, supervision. Jingyu Ren: methodology, writing—review and editing.
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Huang, H., Tao, X., Niu, Z. et al. Construction of magnetically recoverable MnZnFe2O4@Ag3PO4 Z-scheme photocatalyst for rapid visible-light-driven phenol degradation. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 32095–32107 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24479-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24479-3