Iron Species-Impregnated Granular Activated Carbon as Modified Particle Electrodes Applied in Benzothiazole Adsorption and Electrocatalytic Degradation

The object of this study is to prepare iron species-impregnated granular activated carbon as particle electrodes in order to improve their adsorption and electrocatalytic degradation capacity in Benzothiazole removal. The incorporation of Fe-containing catalysts was performed by Fe(NO₃)₃ impregnation. The obtained samples were characterized by BET, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, SEM-EDS, powder X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectra and TG. Compared with pure activated carbon, this modified particle electrodes show higher static adsorption capacities and TOC removal, which have respectively increased by 25.9% and 54.4%. Both physisorption and chemisorption exist in the process of benzothiazole adsorption, where the latter plays a major role. In this way, the Fe-containing catalysts on modified particle electrodes are demonstrated to make a greater contribution to the improvement of electrocatalytic degradation by decreasing the activated energy by 32%.