Efficient and Durable Single-Atom Fe Catalyst for Fenton-like Reaction via Mediated Electron-Transfer Mechanism
Siting Shao, Jiahao Cui, Kun Wang, Zhenchun Yang, Lina Li, Shiqi Zeng, Jianguo Cui, Chun Hu, Yubao Zhao
Abstract
Efficient approaches toward selective removal of the emerging organic pollutants are of critical importance to the well-being of the human health and the eco-system. Peroxymonosulfate-involved advanced oxidation process is promising in water treatment due to a couple of intrinsic advantages of the reaction system, and the development of an efficient catalyst is essential to the real application of this technique. In this work, a series of single-atom Fe catalysts were fabricated via a facile method, and the single-atom center was identified to be in a Fe–N4 configuration by Fe K-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy. On the optimum catalyst with 4.8 wt % Fe single atom, 22 ppm BPA could be eliminated within 40 s under mild reaction conditions, affording a remarkable pseudo-first-order reaction rate constant of 8.4 min–1. The durability of the catalyst was tested with a fixed-bed flow reactor, and 55.2 L of polluted water with 10 ppm BPA could be treated with a removal rate of >95% by 1 g of catalyst. Through a series of probe reactions and spectroscopic analysis, the mediated electron-transfer mechanism was identified to be dominant during the pollutant degradation process.