Enhanced fenton-like catalysis by facilely prepared nano-scale NCFOH/HKUST composites with synergistic effect for dye degradation

To lower the cost, highly active heterogeneous Fenton-like catalysts with good chemical stabilityare crucial for advanced wastewater treatment. In this research, NCFOH/HKUST composites were simply prepared by direct synsedimentary growth of copper benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylate (referred as HKUST) on nanoscale-confined precursor of CuFe2O4 (NCFOH), and then applied to catalytic degradation of Reactive Orange 5 (RO5). All the NCFOH/HKUST composites exhibited enhanced catalytic activity compared with NCFOH and HKUST. Great dye degradation and mineralization rates were achieved at the initial pH of near neutral when the mass ratio of NCFOH and HKUST was 1:5. Moreover, the degradation rate of dye was over 98% within 80 min and total organic carbon (TOC) removal efficiency reached 83% after 3 h. The kinetic rate constant (k) and •OH generated from electrochemical potentiokinetic reactivation (EPR) of NCFOH/HKUST was 2.0 and 1.5 times larger than those based on pure NCFOH respectively. In addition, the composite shows excellent usability. The enhanced catalytic efficiency was ascribed to the increase of the mass transfer during the degradation process, synergic catalytic effect from easily formed coordinative unsaturated metal centers (CUC) in HKUST, and the enhanced interfacial electron transfer due to circulation of Cu(II)/Cu(I) and Fe(III)/Fe(II) redox couple and strong synergistic interaction between HKUST and NCFOH. This work could provide a facile strategy via a simply co-precipitation process to fabricate hybrid Fenton-like catalysts with great effect.