Photocatalytic Oxidative Decolorization of Methyl Orange with Iron Phthalocyanine/Calcium Alginate Gel Beads

Abstract

A photocatalyst iron phthalocyanine/calcium alginate gel bead (FePc@SA) was prepared through the mixture including iron tetra (N-carbonylacrylic) aminophthalocyanine (FePc) and sodium alginate dropped into 5 % (w/v) CaCl2 solution to get gel beads. The color of gel ball was black and the average diameters of gel ball before and after drying were 3.19 mm and 1.20 mm, respectively. Methyl orange was selected as a substrate to investigate the photocatalytic activity of FePc@SA. The results shown that the remaining rate of methyl orange was 19.51 % under the condition of methyl orange 10 mg/L 25 mL, pH value was 3, the dosage of H2O2 was 50 μL, FePc@SA was 0.2 g and visible light irradiation for 3 h. The results indicated that FePc@SA/H2O2 system had an obvious synergistic effect on photocatalytic oxidative decolorization of methyl orange. The decolorization process conformed to the first order kinetics equation, and the half-life of FePc@SA was 76.7 min. Simple preparation methods and excellent photocatalytic properties made FePc@SA became an ideal high performance photocatalytic material, which was applied to deal with wastewater containing organic pollutants.