Heterogeneous photo-Fenton and photocatalytic degradation studies of 2-chloro-4-nitrophenol (2Cl4NP) using foundry sand and TiO2 coated cement/clay beads

Abstract

-Cement and clay beads coated with TiO 2 were used for the photo-degradation and mineralization of 2-chloro-4-nitrophenol (2Cl4NP) along with a heterogeneous solar photo-Fenton process using foundry sand (FS) as the iron source. The degradation process was optimized using slurry photocatalysis where 96% degradation of 2Cl4NP was achieved in 120 min at optimized conditions of C0=50 mgL -1 , pH=4, 0.75 gL -1 TiO 2 and H 2 O 2 = 0.1 mL/200 mL. Degradation of 2Cl4NP was analyzed through HPLC along with UV-Visible spectrophotometer at 266 nm. The degradation of 68% and 52% of 2Cl4NP was attained in fixed-bed photocatalysis using cement and clay beads, respectively. The durability studies of cement and clay beads were carried out in terms of number of recycles. 97.19% degradation was obtained in a solar photo-Fenton process after 105 min at pH=3. Complete mineralization of 2Cl4NP was confirmed through reduction in COD along with the disappearance of the parent compound peak in HPLC chromatograms.

Potential Use of Waste in Electrocatalysis Using Foundry Sand as Electrocatalyst for the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

“…8 FS has also been used for environmental remediation purposes. For example, Aggarwal et al 9 demonstrated that it is possible to degrade 2-chloro-4-nitrophenol by the photo-Fenton process, in a batch reactor, using foundry sand as the iron source, which was achieved in 105 min under solar light irradiation and 0.025% in volume of H 2 O 2 . Despite all these examples, no studies regarding electrochemical applications were found for this material, making this report probably the first to tap into the electrocatalytic properties of this specific waste onto HER.…”