Preparation And Photocatalytic Decomposition Properties Of Iron-Phthalocyanine/Attapulgite Photocatalyst

Phthalocyanine (Pc) compounds with their 18π-electronic conjugated system and intense electronic interaction in macrocycle display photoconductivity, gas-sensing property, catalytic activity and bionic performance. Metal phthalocyanine (MPc) is a good catalyst for oxygen and peroxide oxidation. With MPc as a catalyst, oxidation reaction can proceed under lower temperature and higher efficiency.In this paper, Iron-phthalocyanine was synthesized by solid phase synthesis and microwave synthesis methods. The structure of the target product was characterized by IR, UV-VIS, EDS and TG. The influences of reaction temperature, reaction time, catalyst dose and the molar ratio of reactant on the yield of iron-phthalocyanine were investigated. Compared with solid phase synthesis, microwave synthesis method has advantages of short synthesis time, high efficiency and yield. Based on the results of technique of microwave synthesis, it was found that the yield of iron- phthalocyanine was greatly influenced by reaction time.It is well known that the photocatalytic oxidation technology has advantages in treatment of toxic organic pollutants. In this paper, in order to solve the contradiction between catalyst fastness and activation in its real application, we used attapulgite, a natural clay with high specific surface area and porous structure, as the carrier, and prepared iron-phthalocyanine /attapulgite compound catalyst by solution adsorption method. The compound catalyst can rapidly adsorb the pollutants with low concentration, and increase the photocatalytic degradation rate.The structure and the composition of the compound catalyst were characterized by SEM, IR, XRD and TG. The effects of various experimental parameters on adsorption properties were investigated, such as shaking time, temperature and initial solution concentration. The adsorption mechanism of iron-phthalocyanine onto the attapulgite was also investigated based on the adsorption thermodynamics. The results showed that more shaking time and higher temperature increased the adsorption efficiency and the adsorption process finished in short time. The adsorption capability of attapulgite could be enhanced through the aid modification and heating modification. The adsorption data of iron-phthalocyanine onto attapulgite fitted well to the Freundlich isotherms in the experimental temperature and concentration range.The photodegradation of formaldehyde was discussed in detail in this paper. Results showed that the compound catalyst possessed excellent catalytic properties for treating formaldehyde at normal temperature and atmospheric pressure. The photocatalytic activity of the compound catalyst was much higher than that of pure iron-phthalocyanine. From the principle of MPc treating organic mercaption, the mechanism of iron-phthalocyanine for catalytic oxidation of formaldehyde was discussed. It can be concluded that the catalyst will be playing an important role in the degradation of organic pollutants.