Insights into pore structure-activity relationships of iron catalysts supported on fluorine–cerium nanosheets for heterogeneous Fenton oxidation

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) structural materials as catalyst supports is crucial for improving the heterogeneous catalytic activity, while the relationships between their porous structure and catalytic performance are still not very clear. Herein, four kinds of porous 2D Fluorine-Cerium (F-Ce) nanosheets were fabricated and used as catalyst support, aiming to investigate the effect of porous structure on the catalytic properties by heterogeneous Fenton oxidation and unveil the structure-activity relationships. Compared with 2D non-porous GO, Ti3C2, and porous g-C3N4, F-Ce nanosheets exhibited superior catalytic activity. Specifically, FeOOH/F-Ce-3 catalysts achieved 95.5 % phenol removal within 40 minutes, with the deposition sites and electronic structures of the loaded Fe-active species being modulated by tuning the pore structures. In addition, we demonstrated that large pore size and high pore volume are more conducive to high catalytic performance, as well as the uniform pore shape and well-ordered pore distribution are more favorable for mass transfer during catalysis. This work emphasizes the great advantage of using porous 2D F-Ce nanosheets as support in the construction of heterogeneous Fenton catalysts while elaborating the relationship between pore structure and catalytic activity.