Fe3O4 nanoparticles decorated smectite nanocomposite: Characterization, photocatalytic and electrocatalytic activities

Abstract

Magnetite nanoparticles-decorated smectite nanocomposite was prepared by precipitation method and the obtained nanocomposite was used as both nanophotocatalyst for removal of rhodamine B from wastewater under UVA irradiation and electrocatalyst for the electrooxidation of chlorite ion on the carbon paste electrode. The raw smectite, bare magnetite and the synthesized nanocomposite catalyst were comparatively characterized by using XRD, FTIR, SEM, EDX, XPS, VSM, TG/DTG, DTA, DSC, electrophoretic mobility and BET techniques in detail. The XRD, SEM, electrophoretic mobility and VSM results indicated that the magnetite nanoparticles were uniformly distributed on the surface of smectite with a diameter of about 7 nm by electrostatic interactions and the prepared nanocomposite displayed well superparamagnetic behaviour with strong saturation magnetization at room temperature. The XPS, EDX, FTIR and thermal analysis data of synthesized nanocomposite further confirmed that the magnetite nanoparticles were successfully decorated on the smectite without formation of another ferric phase species. Furthermore, the surface area of magnetite smectite nanocomposite is higher than that of raw smectite, which is related to the magnetite nanoparticles decorated onto the smectite. The catalytic activities of all samples were comparatively investigated by using the degradation of aqueous rhodamine B solutions as a model pollutant in the heterogeneous photo-like-Fenton process which is well defined by the pseudo-first-order equation in kinetics. The resultant magnetite-smectite nanocomposite showed excellent magnetic separability and much better photocatalytic activity in a short period compared to the bare magnetite and smectite. The synergetic effect between magnetite and smectite showed high activity not only in photodegradation but also in electrocatalytic applications. Because the developed nanocomposite material exhibited enhanced catalytic activity towards to chlorite ion oxidation it was applied for the voltammetric quantification of chlorite ion in aqueous medium. After the optimization of the measurement parameters, the limit of detection and quantification of the method were calculated as 3.0 and 10.0 μM, respectively.