Construction of Fe-based amorphous active surface microenvironment and its synergistic Fenton-like treatment of organic pollutants

Abstract

Fe-based amorphous materials with the superiorities of high efficiency and low Fe sludge secondary pollution can be seen as a potential alternative to Fenton catalysts. However, catalyst deactivation on the catalyst surface hinders the sustainability of high degradation activity. In this study, the degradation capabilities of FeBCCr amorphous alloys in methylene blue (MB) solution by Fenton-like method were explored. The optimum (Fe81B10C9)99Cr1 ribbon with a more uniform Fe3B-like amorphous structure, which exhibits a thin and easily-peeled oxide layer, provides unique dynamic self-renewing to obtain excellent efficiency and recyclability. The degradation rate with 0.05 g/L (Fe81B10C9)99Cr1 ribbon reached 0.248 min−1 and the recyclability reached a charming record of over 90 times with a dosage of 0.1 g ribbon. The activation energy of (Fe81B10C9)99Cr1 ribbon (12.97 kJ mol−1) was found to be superior to that of most metallic catalysts. More importantly, the boron-rich film in the interfacial region can both retard further oxidation of iron and provides a channel for electron transmission, which can contribute to the persistence of a highly active microenvironment with more Fe(Ⅱ) sites and highly utilization of H2O2. The limit segmentation method has verified the good performance in both heterogeneous and homogeneous reactions. This study introduces a strategy for designing high-performance non-noble metallic catalysts through cluster structure regulation, which provides a novel Fenton-like amorphous material with long recyclability of high degradation activity for water remediation.