Facilitating Se(VI) adsorption and electron transfer by introducing αFeOOH to sulfidated zero-valent iron

Abstract

Sulfidation of zerovalent iron (SZVI) enhances electron transfer ability due to the formation of FeSx, which facilitates pollutant removal. However, for pollutants that are difficult to adsorb onto SZVI, the longer electron transfer distance results in inefficient removal. The presence of iron (hydr)oxides on ZVI and SZVI is inevitable, and it can adsorb highly mobile pollutants (such as Se(VI)). Here, we regulated the composition of iron (hydr)oxides on ZVI and SZVI surfaces by aging treatment, which improves their Se(VI) removal performance. Based on this, αFeOOH which has a strong affinity for Se(VI), is introduced onto SZVI to synthesize the high-quality composite SZVI-αFeOOH. The characterization results showed that Fe-OH from αFeOOH and FeSx successfully combined and uniformly distributed on SZVI-αFeOOH, creating active sites, and the Se(VI) removal rate (kobs = 0.2211 min−1) increased ∼ 7.4 times over SZVI (kobs = 0.0297 min−1). The adsorption and reduction of Se(VI) were optimized by regulating the mass ratio of αFeOOH to SZVI. In addition, different initial Se(VI) concentrations and solution pH were designed to explore the effects on Se(VI) removal and evaluate the best removal reaction condition. The mechanism of Se(VI) removal by SZVI-αFeOOH is as follows: Se(VI) is firstly adsorbed on αFeOOH, which shortens the electron transfer distance, and then the absorbed Se(VI) is reduced to readily immobilized states by SZVI. This work proposes a targeted strategy to modify SZVI to efficiently remove pollutants with strong mobile and difficult adsorption.