Heterogeneously degradation of aniline in aqueous solution using persulfate catalyzed by magnetic BiFeO3 nanoparticles

In this study, magnetic BiFeO3 nanoparticles (BFO MNPs) were successfully synthesized by simple sole-gel method. The BFO MNPs catalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) techniques. The prepared catalyst was used to activate persulfate (PS) to generate sulfate radicals (SO4 center dot-) for the enhanced degradation of aniline from aqueous solution. It was found that BFO MNPs showed high catalytic activity toward PS decomposition for the degradation of aniline. The degradation efficiency of aniline (0.5 mM) was 100% within 120 min using initial dosage of 0.5 g/L BFO MNPs and concentration of 5 mM persulfate. Even at neutral pH (7.0), aniline was efficiently degraded in BFO MNPs /PS system. The effects of reaction parameters such as initial pH, PS concentration and dosage of BFO MNPs were investigated. The radical scavenging and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) results showed that sulfate radicals (SO4 center dot-) and hydroxyl radicals (center dot OH) were generated by the activation of PS with BFO MNPs for the degradation of aniline. The stability of catalyst was tested by means of successive reuse cycles. The results revealed that BiFeO3 catalyst exhibited high reusability and stability in degrading aniline through PS activation.