A novel magnetically separable BiVO₄/N-rGO/CuFe₂O₄ hybrid photocatalyst for efficient detoxification of p-bromophenol

ABSTRACT

The present work deals with simple hydrothermal preparation of magnetically separable BiVO₄/N-rGO/CuFe₂O₄ Z-scheme hybrid photocatalyst for efficient detoxification of p-bromophenol (p-BP). BiVO₄ is one of the most efficient visible light catalyst, however, suffers with photo-corrosion and high recombination of charge carriers that restricts its applications. Addition of graphene oxide doped with nitrogen are believed to overcome these issues. Further addition of CuFe₂O₄ enhances the catalytic degradation and helps in separating the catalyst. With these merits BiVO₄/N-rGO/CuFe₂O₄ could be a promising photocatalyst for detoxification of p-BP. After 60 min of irradiation 94.1 ± 1.2% degradation was achieved by the BiVO₄/N-rGO/CuFe₂O₄ (k = 0.01749 min⁻¹) while only 53.8 ± 2.3% was observed in BiVO₄ (k = 0.00674 min⁻¹). The catalyst could be able to recover using external magnet and showed 86.4% of degradation efficiency even after five recycles, which suggested its good stability. The degradation products identification and pathway were proposed based on LC-ESI/MS analysis. Moreover, phytotoxicity assessment of the degradation products was investigated on Phaseolus vulgaris in which the germination index (GI) was about 11.4% for pure p-BP, while it was about 83.03% for degradation products. Thus, the results suggested that more efficient p-BP detoxification was achieved during this photodegradation.

KEYWORDS:

• P-bromophenol
• detoxification
• magnetic catalyst
• degradation
• germination index

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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