Simultaneously improved kinetic rate and reusability in phenol degradation by laser processing on Fe-based amorphous ribbon

The metastable energy state and abundant active sites in Fe-based amorphous alloys (FAAs) make them promising catalysts. Surface atomic states may affect the catalytic performance of FAAs as well as the internal long-range disordered atomic structure. This paper investigates how laser surface processing affects the phenol degradation performance of industrial Fe 78 Si 9 B 13 amorphous ribbon. Suitable laser processing obviously improves the phenol degradation performance, and 40 W laser processing leads to the most significantly improved kinetic rate, which reaches 0.82 min −1 , much higher compared to former Fe-based catalysts even with less catalyst dosage; moreover, the degradation rate also maintains over 98 % after 18 cycles. The lower activation energy, the abundant active sites, and more ·OH generation with suitable laser processing, are responsible for this degradation improvement. This study reports the improved phenol degradation performance of Fe-based amorphous ribbon by laser processing and further discloses related mechanisms, which provides a feasible strategy obtaining efficient and durable FAAs catalysts in improving the quality of phenol-containing wastewater.