Highly dispersed of Ag/AgCl nanoparticles on exfoliated FeOCl nanosheets as photo-Fenton catalysts for pollutants degradation via accelerating Fe(II)/Fe(III) cycle

In this work, Ag/AgCl/FeOCl (Ag-Fe) catalysts were successfully prepared via multistep routes in which Ag was uniformly anchored to the enriched Cl sites provided by exfoliated FeOCl nanosheets. Among these Ag-Fe cat-alysts, 5% Ag-Fe exhibited the highest pseudo first-order kinetic constant 0.1056 min? 1 for photo-Fenton degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB), which was 11 times higher than that of FeOCl (0.0096 min(-1)). Ag-Fe catalysts exposed more coordinatively unsaturated Fe active sites to coordinate with H2O2 due to the cleavage of Fe-Cl bond. The exposed coordinatively unsaturated Fe(III) active sites could capture the photoinduced electrons and reduce them to Fe(II), which boosted the separation efficiency of photogenerated charge carriers. Mean-while, the photogenerated electrons of Ag0 transferred to the FeOCl, promoting the reduction of Fe(III) to Fe(II). In addition, the intensified visible light adsorption (SPR effect) was achieved after introducing Ag/AgCl nano-particles on exfoliated FeOCl. Hydroxyl radicals (.OH) and holes (h+) were determined as the main reactive oxidative species (ROS) in the photo-Fenton degradation process.

Automated summary

In this study, Ag/AgCl/FeOCl (Ag-Fe) catalysts were prepared and 5% Ag-Fe catalyst showed the highest performance for photo-Fenton degradation of Rhodamine B. The improved efficiency of charge carrier separation was achieved by exposing coordinatively unsaturated Fe active sites and transferring photoinduced electrons from Ag0 to FeOCl. Introducing Ag/AgCl nanoparticles onto exfoliated FeOCl resulted in enhanced visible light absorption. Hydroxyl radicals and holes were identified as the main reactive oxidative species in the photo-Fenton degradation process.