Facile synthesis of porous boron nitride-supported α-Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles for enhanced regeneration performance

ABSTRACT

Porous boron nitride (PBN) as an emerging porous material exhibits unique physico-chemical properties for environmental remediation. However, the practical applications of PBN are very difficult due to its poor regeneration performance. In this work, we loaded α-Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles on PBN to form a kind of composite (HB) with high adsorption capacity, which possessed remarkably enhanced regeneration performance. As expected, HB exhibited excellent synergistic catalytic degradation activity with the assistance of H₂O₂ towards methylene blue (MB) adsorbed on its surface: after 10 cycles, the removal efficiency of 92.8% for HB remained. Further experiments revealed that the α-Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles accelerated the decomposition of H₂O₂ to produce ·O₂ radicals and ·OH radicals, which could degrade the dye adsorbed on their surface directly. Given the high adsorption capacity and excellent recyclability, HB is envisaged to be valuable practically for water purification and meets the requirement of large-scale production.

KEYWORDS:

• Porous boron nitride
• hematite
• water purification
• regeneration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province of China [Grant No. 2017CFB581], the Outstanding Scientific and Technological Innovation Team Program of Hubei Province of China [Grant No. T201922], the Science and Technology Research Project of the Educational Commission of Hubei Province  of China [Grant No. 2019AFB842], the Scientific Research Foundation for Novel Coronavirus Prevention and Controll of Hubei University of Education[Grant No. 20XGZX11] and the Scientific Research Foundation for Talented Scholars of Hubei University of Education [Grant No. 19RC01].