Highly photocatalytic activity of novel Fe-MIL-88B/GO nanocomposite in the degradation of reactive dye from aqueous solution

Abstract

An Fe-MIL-88B/graphene oxide (GO) composite was successfully synthesized by the hydrofluoric acid (HF) free-solvothermal method. The sample was characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), N2 adsorption–desorption Brunauer−Emmett−Teller (BET) method, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). BET shows that Fe-MIL-88B/GO is of a mesoporous structure, while XRD and XPS results reveal that besides the Fe-MIL-88B phase, a new α-FeOOH phase in the novel Fe-MIL-88B/GO composite is formed. The as-prepared Fe-MIL-88B/GO nanocomposite was used to test the photocatalytic degradation of reactive dye (reactive red-RR195) from aqueous solution. This novel metal-organic framework (MOF)/GO composite exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity. Thus, after 25 min of reaction under simulated sunlight irradiation, removal efficiency reached 98%. Moreover, this composite still maintained high photocatalytic activity after three cycles of reaction runs, indicating its high stability and reusability. This opens a new application potential for MOF/GO as a highly efficient photo-Fenton catalyst.