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Professor Xu Chunhua's group, in the School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shandong University, obtained new advances in the field of sulfidated zero-valent iron (SZVI) hetero-phase interfacial regulation, and the research results have been published in the journals of Environmental Science & Technology (IF=11.4) and Water Research (IF=12.8). Shandong University is the institution of first and corresponding authors, Prof. Xu is the corresponding author, and the first authors are Zhang Yue and Qu Guanjun, respectively. The results focus on the effect of chemical bonding between ZVI and FeSx on the electron transfer ability of SZVI, and the mechanism of the hetero-phase interface connection during the preparation of SZVI.
Sulfur-modification can enhance the decontamination ability of ZVI, and constructing the interfacial connection between the two phases of ZVI and FeSxis the key for SZVI preparation. But the chemical connection mechanism between ZVI and FeSx during SZVI preparation by liquid-phase precipitation is still elusive. Based on this, the authors analyzed the SZVI preparation process, and studied the performance of SZVI that prepared by "in-situ growth" and "physical coating" pathways. Results reveal that the in-situ formation of FeSx on the ZVI surface enables the chemical bonding of the two phases and achieves efficient sulfidation. The pathway is mainly controlled by two steps, Fe(II) production and FeSx generation, and the rates of the two steps are balanced by adjusting the pH and S(-II) concentration, which realizes a good control of SZVI preparation.
In the two processes of in-situ growth and physical coating of FeSx coexisting in the SZVI preparation system, making full use of the isolate FeSx is the key to optimising SZVI design. Based on this, powdered activated carbon (PAC) was introduced into the SZVI preparation to achieve the full utilization of isolate FeSx and optimize the assembly pattern of heterogeneous FeSx. Physical adsorption of isolate FeSx by PAC and chemical assembly of interfacial FeSx at SZVI were realized, and the problem of limiting the application such as blocking and slating of permeable reaction barriers with SZVI as the treatment medium was solved. These results provide new interface optimization strategies for SZVI fine-tuning towards environmental applications.
Prof. Xu's group has been devoted to the research of functional materials applied to environmental remediation for years and has made great progress in the remediation of heavy metals and organic pollutants with iron-based materials. In recent years, more than 20 articles have been published in the SCI journals of Environmental Science & Technology, Water Research, Chemical Engineering Journal, Journal of Hazardous Materials and other journals. These works were funded by the General Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
Links:https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c02768
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2023.120860
