Enhancement of heterogeneous photo-Fenton performance of core-shell structured boron-doped reduced graphene oxide wrapped magnetical Fe3O4 nanoparticles: Fe(II)/Fe(III) redox and mechanism

In this paper, a kind of novel core-shell structured heterogeneous photo-Fenton catalyst, boron-doped reduced graphene oxide wrapped Fe 3 O 4 (Fe 3 O 4 @B-rGO) composite, was successfully synthesized by heating the mixture of Borane-Tetrahydrofuran adduct and graphene oxide wrapped Fe 3 O 4 (Fe 3 O 4 @GO) under reflux conditions. The core-shell structure of the catalyst had been confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photo electron spectra (XPS), and electron energy loss spectrum (EELS). The experimental results for Bisphenol A (BPA) degradation demonstrated that the as-prepared catalyst exhibited much higher photo-Fenton catalytic activity than Fe 3 O 4 and reduced graphene oxide wrapped Fe 3 O 4 (Fe 3 O 4 @rGO). Additionally, Fe 3 O 4 @B-rGO with mass concentration of doped boron at 9.3% exhibited the optimum catalytic property, in which system the BPA degradation kinetic rate constant was almost 1.96 times and 1.82 times of that in the systems with Fe 3 O 4 and Fe 3 O 4 @rGO, respectively. Finally, the mechanism analyses verified that OH, O 2 − and h + were the main reaction species in this system, and photo-electron generated by boron doped reduce graphene oxide (B-rGO) can accelerate the redox between Fe(II) and Fe(III). The excellent photo-Fenton performance, stability and magnetic separation properties make it promising for the degradation of organic compounds in waste water under visible light.