Photo-Fenton-like catalytic activity of nano-lamellar Fe2V4O13 in the degradation of organic pollutants

A new photo-Fenton-like catalyst with high activity, Fe2V4O13, has been found. It can be obtained by a simple wet chemical process. The catalyst has a nano-lamellar structure with a thinness of less than 100 nm, a BET surface of 52.26 m2 g−1, and a band-gap of 1.59 eV favorable to absorption of visible light. Experiments demonstrated that Fe2V4O13 could effectively catalyze degradation of Acid Orange II (AOII) by H2O2 in visible light. The degradation was well fitted by a simple pseudo-first-order reaction with a rate constant of 0.0965 min−1. Moreover, the photo-Fenton-like catalytic activity of Fe2V4O13 was much higher than that of not only α-Fe2O3 and V2O5 but also their mixture (Fe2O3 + 2V2O5) with an identical atomic ratio of Fe and V, and that of both Fe3O4 and γ-FeOOH. The high catalytic activity of Fe2V4O13 possibly involves a special two-way Fenton-like, semiconductor photo-catalytic mechanism and the synergistic activation of Fe(III) and V(V) in Fe2V4O13 towards H2O2.