Synthesis of cobalt ferrite in one-pot-polyol method, characterization, and application to methylparaben photodegradation in the presence of peroxydisulfate

Abstract

Cobalt ferrite nanoparticles (CFNPs) have been synthesized using a one-pot-polyol method in the presence of different organic mediums as refluxing solvents. The synthesized CFNPs stability, magnetic property, particle size, and structural variations were characterized using high resolution transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller analysis, superconducting quantum interference device, UV–vis Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The CFNPs synthesized in the presence of triethylene glycol achieved the highest saturation magnetization (Ms) 126.7 emu/g. It has been observed that synthesis parameters have significant impacts on the Ms, physical and chemical properties of CFNPs, and need to be explored further in future work. The photocatalytic properties of the synthesized CFNPs were investigated at pH 7, under visible light, on the degradation of methylparaben (MeP). The photocatalytic result shows almost a complete degradation of 10 mg/L MeP within 100 min (99.9%), in the presence of 0.2 g/L CFNPs and 2 mM ammonium peroxydisulfate (APDS), while irradiated by visible light. The effect of operating parameters such as pH, APDS concentration, MeP concentration, catalyst amount, and reactive oxygen species were investigated. The photodegradation kinetics are well fitted to the pseudo-first-order kinetics model. The Total Organic Carbon results showed that 81.7% of MeP was completely mineralized, and the photocatalyst showed good stability even after five cycles. The degradation by-products were identified using Ultra-High-Performance Liquid Chromatography/quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry and a degradation pathway was proposed.