Ultrasound-assisted heterogeneous Fenton-like process for efficient degradation of tetracycline over SmFeO3/Ti3C2Tx catalyst

Abstract

The relatively low performance of Fe(II) regeneration is an important problem of the conventional Fenton system. Novel SmFeO3/Ti3C2TX (SFO/TCT) catalysts were synthesized using a self-assembly method to address this shortcoming. XRD, FT-IR, XPS, SEM, HR-TEM, and BET-BJH analyses confirmed the successful synthesis of the SFO/TCT-10 composite material. The synthesized catalysts were used to degrade tetracycline (TC) under sonocatalytic and sono-Fenton catalytic processes. The SFO/TCT-10 catalyst showed excellent efficiency (99 % in 30 min) for the degradation of TC compared to SFO and TCT bare materials under the sono-Fenton process. In fact, TCT acted as the electron trapper to boost the separation and transition of generated carriers in composite material and improved its catalytic activity. The effects of different parameters on the degradation of TC with SFO/TCT-10 catalyst were studied, and the catalytic mechanism was explained. In addition, the possible degradation pathways were proposed. This study provides new insights into the synergy between SFO perovskite nanoparticles and TCT MXene in the sono-Fenton catalytic system for the degradation of TC.