Highly Efficient Heterogeneous Photo-Fenton-Like Catalyst of e-Fe2O3/SiO2/Attapulgite with Rich Oxygen Vacancies for Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Pollutants

Heterogeneous photo-Fenton oxidation is a promising solution to solve the problem of environmental pollution. Due to the low efficiency of the Fe2O3 photo-Fenton catalyst, we loaded Fe2O3 on the catalyst carrier of attapulgite (ATP) to obtain more active sites. Oxygen vacancies were introduced on the surface of the catalyst to improve the separation efficiency of photogenerated charges. The oxygen-vacancy-rich e-Fe2O3/SiO2/ATP Fenton-like photocatalyst was successfully synthesized by simple strategies. The oxygen vacancies were successfully introduced to the surface of the e-Fe2O3/SiO2/ATP catalyst by a solvothermal method, and verified by XPS, Raman and EPR spectra. The e-Fe2O3/SiO2/ATP Fenton-like photocatalyst shows excellent photocatalytic degradation activity of MB and RhB. 96 % of RhB was degraded by e-Fe2O3/SiO2/ATP with light in 60 min, and 95 % of MB was degraded by e-Fe2O3/SiO2/ATP with light in 60 min. Therefore introducing surface oxygen vacancies is an effective strategy to future improve the catalytic activity of photo-Fenton like catalysts.