Efficient Degradation of Organic Dyes Using Vanadium Titanomagnetite Tailings/Kaolin Composite Photocatalyst

The recycling of mineral tailings is an important research topic. In this work, composite material was prepared using vanadium titanomagnetite (VTM) tailings, kaolin and sodium silicate, and used as a photocatalyst for photocatalytic degradation organic dyes. The results showed that the photocatalytic material has good photocatalytic performance on the degradation of rhodamine B in solution within a few minutes. The synthesized materials were characterized by XRF, XRD, FT-IR and SEM. The effects of solution pH and preparation conditions on the photocatalytic degradation efficiency were also investigated in detail. The results indicated that it was feasible to transform the VTM tailings into photocatalysts, and provided an idea for the comprehensive utilization of VTM tailings. Graphical Abstract