Enhanced heterogeneous Fenton degradation of Methylene Blue by nanoscale zero valent iron (nZVI) assembled on magnetic Fe3O4/reduced graphene oxide

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jwpe.2015.01.006
• Publication Date: 2015-02-07T16:17:03Z
• Authors: Bo Yang; Zhang Tian; Li Zhang; Yaopeng Guo; Shiqiang Yan
• Keywords: Zerovalent iron; Methylene blue; Superparamagnetism; Degradation; Prussian blue

Abstract Highly effective nanoscale zero valent iron (nZVI) immobilized on magnetic Fe 3 O 4 -reduced graphene oxide (Fe 0 –Fe 3 O 4 –RGO) was successfully fabricated and firstly proposed as a heterogeneous Fenton catalyst for the removal of Methylene Blue (MB). The characterization of the hybrids revealed that Fe 3 O 4 were distributed on RGO nanosheets evenly, the nZVI were wrapped by Fe 3 O 4 assembled on the RGO nanosheets. The effects of pH value, initial concentration of MB, catalyst dosage, and hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) concentration on the degradation of MB were systematically investigated. Typically, 98.0% removal of 50 mg/L MB could be achieved within 60 min with the initial pH value of 3.00, H 2 O 2 concentration 0.8 mmol/L, catalyst dose 0.10 g/L. The analysis of kinetics showed that the removal of MB followed the pseudo-second-order kinetics better than the pseudo-first-order kinetics. In addition to its high catalytic activity, the reusability and superparamagnetism make it a promising candidate as heterogeneous Fenton catalyst to remove organic contaminants in water.