Fe-complex modified cellulose acetate composite membrane with excellent photo-Fenton catalytic activity.

A novel Fe-complex loaded visible-light active cellulose acetate (CA) composite membrane (Fe-complex/CA) was fabricated using the tape casting method. The Fe-complex was structurally characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, and the prepared composite membrane was characterized by SEM, XPS, XRD, FTIR and UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The Fe-complex/CA composite membrane exhibited relatively good visible light photocatalytic activity toward organic dyes and sulfadiazine antibiotics in the presence of low concentrations of HO. After irradiation for 60 min, the degradation efficiencies of basic fuchsin, methylene blue and sulfadiazine reached 100 %, 93.4 % and 95.7 %, respectively. The composite membrane maintained good photocatalytic activity after four catalytic cycles. Kinetic studies showed that the degradation processes of basic fuchsin, methylene blue and sulfadiazine were all in accordance with first-order reaction kinetics. In addition, the photocatalytic mechanism of the Fe-complex/CA composite membrane in the photo-Fenton reaction was also discussed in detail.