Enhancing arsenic (III) removal by integrated electrocatalytic oxidation and electrosorption reactions on nano-textured bimetal composite of iron oxyhydroxide and manganese dioxide polymorphs (α-, γ-, β-, and ε-MnxFe1−xO)

Abstract

A composite electrode of manganese oxide (MnO2) incorporated with iron oxide (α-FeOOH) was synthesized for arsenite (As(III)) oxidation and subsequent arsenate (As(V)) electrosorption. The crystal structure and chemical state of MnO2 polymorphs were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and BET surface area. The redox couple of Mn(III)/Mn(IV) mediated the catalytic electron transfer with respect to As(III)/As(V) redox equilibrium. The Mn site contributed a high diffusive current to the redox capacitance, meanwhile the Fe site better provided the double-layer capacitive deionization for arsenic species. Electrolysis of arsenite under constant anodic potential mode (+1.0 V vs. Ag/AgCl) enabled assess the performance of the electrodes. Among the polymorphs, γ-Mn0.2Fe0.8O exhibited the best arsenic adsorption capacity of 48 mg-As g−1, compared to that of α-FeOOH NPs (15 mg-As g−1) and γ-MnO2 (7 mg-As g−1), based on multilayer Langmuir adsorption model.