Rapid degradation of RhB using mesoporous α-Fe2O3 nanowires incorporated in SBA-15 under visible light irradiation

In this work, alpha-Fe2O3/SBA-15 catalysts were prepared by one-step and two-step impregnation methods, and the samples were referred to simply as S1 and S2, respectively. Ordered mesoporous alpha-Fe2O3 nanowires (S3) were obtained by removing SBA-15 from S2. The S1, S2, and S3 catalysts were used to degrade Rhodamine B (RhB) solutions using the photocatalytic-Fenton method, respectively. Within 30 min of visible light irradiation, RhB was completely degraded by S2, the degradation efficiency of which was much higher than the references using Fe2O3 nanoparticles catalysts. The degradation rate constants for S1 and S2 were 0.0633 and 0.1061, respectively, while S3 was only 0.0125. Furthermore, the synthesized S2 catalysts showed good stability, maintaining a high RhB degradation rate of more than 98% within 30 min after 4 cycles. The excellent degradation activity of alpha-Fe2O3/SBA-15 can be attributed to the synergistic effect of alpha-Fe2O3 nanowires and SBA-15 in facilitating the efficient charge transport and photocatalytic-Fenton reaction. This work demonstrated the photocatalytic degradation efficiency can be effectively improved using well-crystallized nanowires catalysts incorporated in the SBA-15.