Brumovský Miroslav, Oborná Jana, Micić Vesna, Malina Ondřej, Kašlík Josef, Tunega Daniel, Kolos Miroslav, Hofmann Thilo, Karlický František, Filip Jan
Department of Environmental Geosciences (EDGE), Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, UZA II, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
Regional Centre of Advanced Technologies and Materials, Czech Advanced Technology and Research Institute (CATRIN), Palacký University Olomouc, Šlechtitelů 27, 779 00 Olomouc, Czech Republic.
Environ Sci Technol. 2022 Apr 5;56(7):4425-4436. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.1c08282. Epub 2022 Mar 9.
Nitriding has been used for decades to improve the corrosion resistance of iron and steel materials. Moreover, iron nitrides (FeN) have been shown to give an outstanding catalytic performance in a wide range of applications. We demonstrate that nitriding also substantially enhances the reactivity of zerovalent iron nanoparticles (nZVI) used for groundwater remediation, alongside reducing particle corrosion. Two different types of FeN nanoparticles were synthesized by passing gaseous NH/N mixtures over pristine nZVI at elevated temperatures. The resulting particles were composed mostly of face-centered cubic (-FeN) and hexagonal close-packed (-FeN) arrangements. Nitriding was found to increase the particles' water contact angle and surface availability of iron in reduced forms. The two types of FeN nanoparticles showed a 20- and 5-fold increase in the trichloroethylene (TCE) dechlorination rate, compared to pristine nZVI, and about a 3-fold reduction in the hydrogen evolution rate. This was related to a low energy barrier of 27.0 kJ mol for the first dechlorination step of TCE on the -FeN(001) surface, as revealed by density functional theory calculations with an implicit solvation model. TCE dechlorination experiments with aged particles showed that the -FeN nanoparticles retained high reactivity even after three months of aging. This combined theoretical-experimental study shows that FeN nanoparticles represent a new and potentially important tool for TCE dechlorination.
几十年来,氮化处理一直被用于提高钢铁材料的耐腐蚀性。此外,氮化铁(FeN)在广泛的应用中已显示出出色的催化性能。我们证明,氮化处理在减少零价铁纳米颗粒(nZVI)腐蚀的同时,还能显著提高其用于地下水修复的反应活性。通过在高温下将气态NH₃/N₂混合物通过原始的nZVI,合成了两种不同类型的FeN纳米颗粒。所得颗粒主要由面心立方(γ-FeN)和六方密排(α-FeN)结构组成。发现氮化处理会增加颗粒的水接触角以及还原态铁的表面活性。与原始的nZVI相比,这两种类型的FeN纳米颗粒的三氯乙烯(TCE)脱氯速率提高了20倍和5倍,析氢速率降低了约3倍。正如采用隐式溶剂化模型的密度泛函理论计算所揭示的那样,这与TCE在γ-FeN(001)表面上第一步脱氯的低能垒27.0 kJ/mol有关。对老化颗粒进行的TCE脱氯实验表明,即使经过三个月的老化,γ-FeN纳米颗粒仍保持高反应活性。这项理论与实验相结合的研究表明,FeN纳米颗粒是用于TCE脱氯的一种新的且可能重要的工具。