Fabrication and application of mesoporous Sb-doped SnO2 electrode with high specific surface in electrochemical degradation of ketoprofen

A novel mesoporous Sb-doped SnO2 electrode with high specific surface area and excellent electrocatalytic oxidation performance is fabricated through the evaporation induced self-assembly (EISA) method, which firstly used for electrochemical degradation. SEM, TEM, XRD and BET revealed that mesoporous Sb-doped SnO2 electiode possessed nanosized particles, high crystallinity, remarkable porous structure with 94.2 m(2) g(-1) surface area and 3.7 nm average pore size. Through in-depth investigation of electrochemical properties, the electrochemical effective surface area of mesoporous Sb-doped SnO2 electrode reaches 8.8 cm(2) cm(-2) and its activation energy is 24.9 kJ mol(-1), exhibiting outstanding electrochemical activity. The mesoporous electrode is further served in ketoprofen removal. Compared with conventional Sb-doped SnO2 electrode, ketoprofen is completely decomposed on the mesoporous electrode after 3 h, and the corresponding kinetic constant is 0.93 h(-1), 2.3 times as much as that of conventional electrode. The initial mineralization current efficiency of the mesoporous electrode attains 25.0%, whereas, the conventional electrode is only 14.9%. The enhancement of electrocatalysis performances with mesoporous electrode are thoroughly discussed and proposed to the essential factors that (i) mesopore structure provides more in situ active sites to accelerate hydroxyl radical generation and ketoprofen oxidation; (ii) mesopore channel effectively promotes the adsorption of organic pollutants, and improved contaminant diffusion. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.