Fabrication of Fe-TiO2-NTs/SnO2-Sb-Ce electrode for electrochemical degradation of aniline

Abstract

In this work, we prepared Fe-TiO2-NTs/SnO2-Sb-Ce electrode by pulse electrodeposition. The surface structure and morphology of the prepared electrode coatings was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). And we use linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), cyclic voltammetry (CV), AC impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and other electrochemical analysis methods to study the electrochemical performance of the electrodes. Additionally, accelerated life tests were performed for different electrodes. The Fe-TiO2-NTs/SnO2-Sb-Ce electrode has fewer cracks and smaller crystallite particles than conventional TiO2-NTs/SnO2-Sb electrodes as obtained from the analysis of XRD and SEM. Moreover, compared with TiO2-NTs/SnO2-Sb electrodes, the Fe-TiO2-NTs/SnO2-Sb-Ce electrode has a higher oxygen evolution potential of 2.17 V (vs. SCE) and lower charge transfer resistance which decreased by 73.6%. At the same time, capacity for electro-catalytic oxidation degradation of aniline is greatly improved, with the highest removal rate being as high as 90% after electrochemical treatment for 120 min. In addition, the cell voltage remains unchanged during the degradation process within 2 h which indicates that the electrode has good stability. The service life of the Fe-TiO2-NTs/SnO2-Sb-Ce electrode is 2.2 times longer than that of the TiO2-NTs/SnO2-Sb electrode according to accelerated life tests. Therefore, the Fe-TiO2-NTs/SnO2-Sb-Ce electrode has a wide range of application prospects in the field of wastewater treatment.