Photocatalytic Degradation of Congo Red Dye from Aqueous Environment Using Cobalt Ferrite Nanostructures: Development, Characterization, and Photocatalytic Performance

• Published in: Water, air, and soil pollution Vol. 231; no. 2; p. 50
• Main Authors: Ali, Nisar, Said, Amir, Ali, Farman, Raziq, Fazal, Ali, Zarshad, Bilal, Muhammad, Reinert, Laurence, Begum, Tasleem, Iqbal, Hafiz M. N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.02.2020; Springer; Springer Nature B.V; Springer Verlag
• Subjects: absorption; acids; Aqueous environments; Aqueous solutions; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Catalysts; Chemical Sciences; Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts; Cobalt; Cobalt ferrites; color; Colour; Congo red; coprecipitation; Diffraction; Dyes; Earth and Environmental Science; Effluents; Electron microscopy; Energy gap; Environment; Environmental monitoring; Environmental Sciences; ferric sulfate; ferrimagnetic materials; Fourier analysis; Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy; Fourier transforms; Hydrogeology; Iron compounds; Iron sulfates; Kinetics; nanomaterials; Nanostructure; pH effects; Photocatalysis; Photodegradation; Process parameters; Purification; Reaction kinetics; Scanning electron microscopy; Sewage; Soil Science & Conservation; stabilizers; Stabilizers (agents); Stabilizing; Sulphates; Triethylene glycol; Water Quality/Water Pollution; X-ray diffraction; X-rays; UV-visible; Brunauer-Emmitt-Teller (BET); Optical band gap; Hazardous dye; Congo red; Influencing parameters
• ISSN: 0049-6979; 1573-2932
• DOI: 10.1007/s11270-020-4410-8

Highly efficient and effective treatments of hazardous dye-based color effluents are a major problem in the industrial sector. In this research, the cobalt ferrite (CoFe 2 O 4 ) catalyst was produced and used for the degradation of Congo red (CR) as a model dye from aqueous solution. For a said purpose, cobalt ferrite (CoFe 2 O 4 ) nanostructures with photocatalytic degradation potential were engineered via co-precipitation method using Fe 2 (SO 4 ) 3 , CoO 2 , and triethylene glycol (as a stabilizing agent). As prepared, CoFe 2 O 4 nanostructures were further surface-functionalized with 3-APTES and tested for CR degradation. The prepared CoFe 2 O 4 nanostructures were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infra-red (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Brunauer-Emmitt-Teller (BET) analysis. UV-visible absorption was used to measure the optical band gap of prepared CoFe 2 O 4 nanostructures through Tauc plots. The as-prepared CoFe 2 O 4 nanostructure bandgap was found to be 2.71 EV while using an acidic medium. The degradation rates of CR dye for bs-CoFe 2 O 4 , as-CoFe 2 O 4 , and fs-CoFe 2 O 4 nanostructures at pH 9 were 84, 87, and 92%, respectively. Furthermore, the influences of various process parameters, i.e., the effect of catalyst dose, contact time, dye dose/concentration, pH effect, and effect of different acids, were checked for the prepared three types of nanostructures, i.e., bs-CoFe 2 O 4 , as-CoFe 2 O 4 , and fs-CoFe 2 O 4 . The kinetics models properly explained that the reaction of degradation following pseudo-first-order kinetics.