Enhanced photo-Fenton activity of Fe3O4 spheres/ montmorillonite under visible light

In this work, a magnetically separable montmorillonite/Fe3O4 sphere composite (MMT/Fe) was synthesized by a simple polyol thermal method. The characteristics of the as-preparation composites were checked by XRD, SEM, PL technologies. In addition, the photocatalytic activities of the composite products were checked by degradation of Rhodamin B (RhB) under visible light. The results showed that MMT/Fe composite exhibited the high photocatalytic activity for RhB removal under visible light irradiation. The improved photocatalytic activity of MMT/Fe can be ascribed to the low combination rate of photoinduced electron/hole pairs. Especially, MMT/Fe can be recovered easily by using an external magnetic field and posse the high stability after six runs. These properties of the MMT/Fe composites as prepared could be a promising photocatalyst for the degradation of organic dye contaminants.