Utilização de Nanopartículas de Óxido de Ferro no processo Foto-Fenton heterogêneo

Abstract

The discharge of organic pollutants in land surface and wastewater soils is harmful to human health and the aquatic environment. At this juncture, Advanced Oxidative Processes (AOP’s) are attractive options, since they have in their essence the formation of hydroxyl radicals (HO•) that act as oxidants in the elimination of contaminants. The AOP’s offer different routes, among them, it is possible to highlight the heterogeneous Photo-Fenton process when using a semiconductor in the solid state, such as iron oxide in the hematite phase (α-Fe2O3) in combination with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) under visible light irradiation. Thus, the objective of this work was to synthesize iron oxide (Fe2O3) nanoparticles by the polymer precursors method (Pechini), varying the calcination temperature, and characterize them using the techniques of Thermogravimetry (TGA / DTG), X-Ray Fluorescence (FRX), X-Ray diffractometry (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS). As well as investigating the degradation of the Methylene Blue (MB) dye through the heterogeneous Photo-Fenton process by means of a 35W Xenon Lamp, a glass beaker containing 40 mL of the MB dye at 10 mg.L-1 , adding H2O2 around 0 to 1% of the volume of the MB solution, beside that to adding 20 mg of the samples synthesized in the system that was under constant stirring. Therefore, aliquots were taken at regular intervals for analysis on the UV-Vis spectrophotometer. Thus, by means of the XRD technique, the presence of the hematite (α - Fe2O3) phase was confirmed in the samples obtained. In addition, it was found that using 200 microliters of H2O2 in the system, higher efficiency was achieved for all samples, so that the calcined at 1000 °C degraded 91.764% of the AM dye within 1 hour. Thus, the results indicated the feasibility of the Pechini method to obtain α - Fe2O3 nanoparticles and their use in the heterogeneous Photo - Fenton process in the visible light, since this represents 46% of the solar irradiation on the terrestrial surface, which makes its application attractive for the degradation of organic contaminants in waste water.