Diatomite coated with Fe2O3 as an efficient heterogeneous catalyst for degradation of organic pollutant

Abstract Heterogeneous catalysts have been attracted considerable attention for degradation of organic pollutions to overcome the disadvantages of the homogeneous Fenton process. Diatomite-Fe 2 O 3 hybrid material, honeycomb structure with circular pores synthesized as a heterogeneous catalyst for photo-Fenton degradation of organic contaminants by a novel method. The existence of Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles in the diatomite-Fe 2 O 3 catalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The catalytic activities of the diatomite-Fe 2 O 3 catalyst were evaluated by the degradation of organic dye under visible light irradiation (>420 nm) in the presence of hydrogen peroxide. The results showed that the catalyst exhibited excellent catalytic property for 99.14% decoloration and 73.41% TOC removal of Rhodamine B, which could be attributed to the synergetic effects of the adsorptive power of diatomite and the hydroxyl radicals produced by heterogeneous photo-Fenton reactions. In addition, the decoloration efficiency was still higher than 90% after the catalyst being used for 5 cycles. Hence, the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of the hybrid material could be very promising for synthesizing for high-efficiency visible-light photocatalyst in the degradation of organic pollutants.