Facile synthesis of mesoporous Co3O4 with excellent performance for activation of PMS

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In this paper, we describe the feasibility of a simple and novel approach for preparing mesoporous Co 3 O 4 catalysts by precipitating of Co(OH) 2 /egg white (EW) in EW/water colloidal solution and post-calcination treatment. The prepared meso-Co 3 O 4 materials were characterized by a range of analytical techniques including XRD, TEM, SEM, EDS, FT-IR, BET and XPS. The results showed the synthesized mesoporous Co 3 O 4 materials were of high crystallinity and large specific surface area. The organic groups in egg white could help to inhibit the excessive growth of Co 3 O 4 grains and form mesoporous structure of Co 3 O 4 . The synthesized mesoporous Co 3 O 4 materials were applied to activating peroxymonosulfate (PMS) for the catalytic degradation of 2- sec -butyl-4,6-dinitrophenol (DNBP) in aqueous solution. The results showed that as-fabricated mesoporous Co 3 O 4 calcinated at 500 °C could act as high-performance heterogeneous catalytic activator for PMS to degrade DNBP. Depended on data fitting, the oxidation system well corresponded to pseudo-first-order kinetic model. Based on quencing experiments, it demonstrated that sulfate radicals served as predominant reactive species in the PMS activation catalytic processes. The mesoporous Co 3 O 4 materials exhibited excellent reproducibility and catalytic performance, which made the application of mesoporous Co 3 O 4 in PMS activation for degrading organic pollutants more feasible and practical.