Removing Rhodamine B from aqueous solutions by Zn/Fe-doped MIL-53(Al)

Abstract

In this paper, Zn/Fe-doped MIL-53(Al) and MIL-53(Al) were synthesized by solvothermal method in N’N-dimethylformamide. The material was characterized using XRD, FT-IR, TG, EDX, SEM, and nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherms. This material’s catalytic adsorption was evaluated via its removal efficiency of rhodamine B (RB) from aqueous solution. The results show that doping with Zn is not favorable for the MIL-53 structure formed, while the material structure is almost unaffected when doping with Fe. But, MIL-53(Al, Fe) has higher adsorption capacity and catalytic activity than the other material samples. It shows that RB was completely removed after 240 minutes of the reaction on MIL-53(Al, Fe) catalyst at 60 °C (10 mg/L RB, 1.0 g/L of the catalyst, 0.192 M H₂O₂, pH 7). The decomposition reaction of RB by H₂O₂ on MIL-53(Al, Fe) occurs in a heterogeneous Fenton-like process.