Photoinduced degradation of orange II on different iron (hydr)oxides in aqueous suspension: rate enhancement on addition of hydrogen peroxide, silver nitrate, and sodium fluoride.

Photoinduced organic oxidation with iron (hydr)oxides in aqueous suspension has been argued with respect to two principal mechanisms: (a) photoinduced ligand-to-metal charge transfer within a surface complex and (b) semiconductor photocatalysis. In this work, the photodegradation of azo dye orange II with UV light (lambda > or = 320 nm) in the aerated aqueous suspensions of haematite, maghemite, magnetite, goethite, lepidocrocite, and feroxyhite at an initial pH of 6.5 has been examined. The results showed that (1) all of the catalysts were effective at initiating dye photodegradation but the iron oxides appeared to be more active than the iron hydroxides; (2) the photodissolution of different iron phases and the dye photolysis in the dissolved iron solutions were very slow; (3) the initial rate of dye loss was proportional to the initial amount of adsorption, implying dye photodegradation on the catalyst surface; and (4) upon addition of H2O2, AgNO3, and NaF to the suspension, the rate of dye photodegradation was significantly enhanced with all the catalysts. In the presence of H2O2, less than 50% of the total rate enhancement was ascribed to the photo-Fenton reaction in solution and the dark Fenton reactions in solution and on the catalyst. In the presence of AgNO3, about 1 mole of silver particles was produced by consuming 3 moles of the dye substrate. In the presence of NaF, hydroxyl radicals were detected by an ethanol scavenger, whereas such radicals were not found in the absence of NaF. Moreover, under visible-light irradiation (lambda > or = 450 nm), the dye degradation was much slower than that under UV irradiation, but the reaction was also accelerated by the addition of NaF and AgNO3. The results suggest that mechanism b, not mechanism a, is operative for dye photodegradation occurring on the iron (hydr)oxides. A detailed discussion of all possible pathways is given in the text.