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Abstract
Environmental pollution by contaminants of emerging concern, among these various pesticides, has been a concern of environmentalists and scientists around the world. Thus, efforts to mitigate the impacts of these substances have been carried out, and the use of advanced oxidation processes, such as photocatalysis, is an alternative. This work sought to synthesize a composite photocatalyst based on iron oxides and titanium dioxide to assess its applicability in degrading the herbicide bentazon (BTZ) by a lamp that simulates the solar spectrum (visible, ultraviolet A and ultraviolet B) and sunlight. Photocatalytic degradation reached 51% in 120 min with a rate constant k = 0.0058 min−1 when a UV-Vis lamp of 300 W was used. The applicability was demonstrated under sunlight radiation, reaching 38% degradation of a bentazon solution (4.1 × 10−4 mol L−1) after 320 min. TiO2 and Fe2O3 were synthesized similarly but showed no degradation under the same conditions. Thus, Fe2O3-TiO2 is an inexpensive and non-toxic material capable of efficiently conducting the photocatalytic degradation of organic compounds, such as the bentazon herbicide.
Highlights
Agriculture is responsible for a large contribution to the Brazilian economy, having a great influence on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).[1]
The results indicated that composites treated with temperatures close to 300 °C provided better efficiency in the degradation of selected dyes
The synthesis of a photocatalyst composed of Fe2O3‐TiO2 was successfully performed from the titanium isopropoxide precursor
Summary
Agriculture is responsible for a large contribution to the Brazilian economy, having a great influence on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (which accounted for 21.4% in 2019).[1]. In this work, we have synthesized composite photocatalysts based on iron(III) oxide (hematite and goethite) and titanium dioxide, evaluating the catalytic activity of the material in the photocatalytic degradation of the herbicide BTZ using UV-Vis radiation. The evaluation of the efficiency of the photocatalysts based on iron(III) oxides was made by experiments on the degradation of an aqueous solution of BTZ in the concentration of 1.3 × 10−4 mol L−1 (31 mg L−1).
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