Manufacturing of Fe/C micro-electrolysis materials with the pyrite cinder towards the degradation of high-concentration organic wastewater

Abstract

Large volumes of pyrite cinder (PyC) was produced about 12 million tons/a in China but the utilization rate is low. In this work, an innovate method has been developed to utilize the hazardous pyrite cinder for manufacturing Fe/C micro-electrolysis materials, which can be used to degrade high-concentration organic wastewater. The effects of preparation conditions on degradation performance of materials were investigated based on the removal rate of chemical oxygen demand (COD) from the simulated methylene blue wastewater containing 500 mg/L initial COD. The results demonstrated that the impressive COD degradation of ICMEM reached 94.37 % within 120 min under manufacturing at 950℃ for 75 min via carbothermal reduction of PyC pellets with 15 % carbon addition. The X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and chemical phase were used to reveal that the formation of Fe0 and Cu0 resulted in the creation of numerous galvanic cells with carbon and effectively facilitating the degradation of methylene blue. This research presents an innovative approach towards cost-effective PyC recycling and he degradation of methylene blue in wastewater.