Efficient Removal of Organic Pollutants with Magnetic Nanoscaled BiFeO3 as a Reusable Heterogeneous Fenton-Like Catalyst

BiFeO3 magnetic nanoparticles (BFO MNPs) were prepared with a sol-gel method and characterized as a catalyst. It was found that BFO MNPs effectively catalyzed the decomposition of H2O2 into center dot OH radicals, being confirmed with electron spin resonance spin-trapping technique and other radical probing techniques, The strong H2O2-activating ability of BFO MNPs showed promising applications in the oxidative degradation of organic pollutants. When BFO MNPs were used as a heterogeneous Fenton-like catalyst to degrade Rhodamine 13,the apparent rate constant for the RhB degradation at 25 degrees C at pH 5.0 in the BFO MNPs-H2O2 system was evaluated to be 2.89 x 10(-2) min(-1), being about 20 folds of that obtained with Fe3O4 MNPs as the catalyst under similar conditions. Moreover, BFO MNPs were demonstrated to have excellent stability and reusability. The catalytic mechanism of BFO MNPs was also investigated with Monte Carlo simulations and density functional theory calculations.