| dc.description.abstract | Water is an indispensable asset for human; however, it immediately becomes unavailable if contaminated by harmful chemical substances. Particularly, industrial wastewater composed of complicated chemical compounds usually accounts for the serious issue. With regard to wastewater treatment, many methods have been proved to be able to degrade organic pollutants. For example, perovskite materials can be applied on organic wastewater treatment due to their photocatalytic reactivity. If perovskite materials are further integrated with a proper electrical conductor, their electrocatalytic effect can be induced. In this study, we try to utilize carbon fibers (CFs), which possesses three-dimensional electrically conductive network, as current collectors to combine with perovskite materials, making a perovskite/CF electrode for organic wastewater treatment.
For the experiment, we prepared the perovskite/CF electrode through a modified sol-gel process. First, YFeO3 precursors were made by several kinds of nitrate and citric acid with sol-gel method. Then, YFeO3 precursors experienced a calcination process with different temperatures as a parameter, forming a powder-type product. Finally, we coated the YFeO3 powders on carbon fibers to make the composite electrode.
X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used to analyze the composite material properties. In addition, a photo-electrocatalytic system composed of the perovskite/CF electrode was established to carry out the organic wastewater treatment. Based on the analyzed results, YFeO3 possessed a good crystallinity and they tended to form aggregates with porous structure; it is also confirmed that YFeO3 successfully deposit on the carbon fibers, forming the composite electrode. As for the wastewater treatment, the removal efficiency can achieve 51% through a 120-min YFeO3 photocatalysis; the YFeO3/CF composite electrode exhibits a favorable photo-electrocatalytic activity of 96% at 0.75 mM FeSO4, 25℃ and pH 3.0 under visible light irradiation after a 30-min treatment, and rate constant k is calculated as 0.0387 Lmg-1min-1. According to electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), the composite electrode effectively degrade organic pollutants due to smaller charge transfer resistance. | en_US |