Highly efficient nanostructured CoFe 2 O 4 thin film electrodes for electrochemical degradation of rhodamine B

• Published in: Water environment research Vol. 92; no. 5; p. 759
• Main Authors: Labchir, Nabil, Amaterz, Elhassan, Hannour, Abdelkrim, Ait Hssi, Abderrahim, Vincent, Didier, Ihlal, Ahmed, Sajieddine, Mohammed
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.05.2020
• Subjects: Electrodes; Nanostructures; Rhodamines; Water; CoFe2O4; electro-catalysis; thin film; degradation; electrodeposition; rhodamine B
• ISSN: 1554-7531
• DOI: 10.1002/wer.1272

In this work, we report the application of highly efficient electrodeposited cobalt ferrite (CoFe O ) thin films in electrochemical degradation of rhodamine B. XRD, FTIR and Raman spectroscopic studies confirmed the formation of single phase CoFe O . SEM analysis revealed a very fine nanorods dispersed uniformly with average size around 30 nm. UV-Vis spectrophotometry emphasized that the optical band gap value is 1.6 eV. Moreover, the elaborated CoFe O thin films showed a good efficiency for the electrochemical degradation of an aqueous solution of rhodamine B (RhB) attaining 99% during the first 3 min of reaction time. The trapping experiments revealed that the hydroxyl radicals were the main active species leading to the removal of RhB initial concentration of 10 mg/L in a very short time. PRACTITIONER POINTS: A simple electrodeposition technique was used to fabricate CoFe O thin. XRD and FTIR studies revealed the formation of pure cubic spinel phase. Nano-rod like morphology has been successfully synthesized. The rhodamine B aqueous solution has been completely decolorized using the obtained CoFe O thin films.