MOF-Derived Porous Fe2O3 Nanoparticles Coupled with CdS Quantum Dots for Degradation of Bisphenol A under Visible Light Irradiation

Abstract

In this work, CdS quantum dots (QDs) were planted on magnetically recyclable porous Fe2O3 (denoted as F450) to obtain CdS QDs/porous Fe2O3 hybrids (denoted as X–CdS/F450, in which X is the immersion times of CdS QDs). Porous Fe2O3 was first obtained by pyrolysis from an iron-containing metal–organic framework by a two-step calcination method. Next, CdS QDs (of average size 3.0 nm) were uniformly and closely attached to the porous F450 via a sequential chemical-bath deposition strategy. As expected, the X–CdS/F450 hybrids serve as high-performance photocatalysts for the degradation of bisphenol A, a typical endocrine-disrupting chemical. Almost ∼100% of the bisphenol A was degraded over 5-CdS/F450 after visible light irradiation for 30 min (λ ≥ 420 nm). In comparison, the degradation efficiency of pure F450 powder is 59.2%. The high performance of 5-CdS/F450 may be ascribable to the fast electron transport of porous F450, the intense visible-light absorption of the CdS QDs and the matched energy levels between CdS and F450. More significantly, through the photocatalytic degradation reaction, the X–CdS/F450 hybrids can easily be recovered magnetically and reused in subsequent cycles, indicating their stability and recyclability.