Recyclable adsorbent of BiFeO3/Carbon for purifying industrial dye wastewater via photocatalytic reproducible

Abstract

It is essential to prepare highly-efficiency reproducible adsorbent for purifying industrial dye wastewater. In this work, biscuit with a layered porous structure as a template is applied to prepare a photocatalytic recyclable adsorbent of BiFeO3/Carbon nanocomposites for purifying simulative industrial dye wastewater. It is found that the structure of the prepared BiFeO3/Carbon nanocomposite is related to the natural structure of the biscuit, annealing temperatures and immersing times, demonstrated by XRD, TEM, UV-Vis and adsorptive activities. Kinetics data shows that the adsorption rate of the adsorbent to the dye is rapid and fitted well with the pseudo-second-order model, that more than 80% of dyes can be removed in the beginning 30 min. The adsorption isotherm can be perfectly described by the Langmuir model as well. It can be seen from the adsorption data that the adsorption performance can reach over 90% at pH = 2–12, which can imply its universal utilization. The prepared BiFeO3/Carbon nanocomposites have also displayed excellent capacities (over 90% within 30 min) for adsorption of seven different dyes and their mixed one. According to the five times photocatalytic reproducible experiments, it is proved that BiFeO3/Carbon nanocomposites show the excellent stability and reproduction for purifying simulative industrial dyes, even the sample have been placed for one year. These research results indicate that the adsorbent BiFeO3/Carbon can be a suitable material used in treating industrial dye wastewater potentially.