A novel 3D flower-like Fe-photocatalyst with high degradative ability for water contaminant under visible light

A novel photocatalyst 2-amino-5-fluorobenzotrifluoride@Fe-based metal–organic framework (2A5F@Fe–MOF) was designed and synthesized, which exhibits excellent photocatalytic performance to degrade water contaminant rhodamine B (RhB) under visible light with 99.2% degradation rate after 2h. The photocatalyst was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) as well as the analysis of morphological structure and chemical composition. Compared with pure Fe-MOF, the designed 2A5F@Fe-MOF photocatalyst appearance shows a transform from 2D to 3D, which maybe lead to the high photocatalytic activity toward RhB under visible light. The optimum conditions, such as ligand ratio, pH and concentration of RhB solution, were screened, also its degradation kinetic equations were built to give a typical reference for a large scale wastewater treatment.