Synthesis of nanospindle-akaganéite and its photocatalytic degradation for methyl orange

Iron oxyhydroxides as important catalysts and environmental mineral materials have drawn significant interest for their potential applications in the field of wastewater treatment. In this work, we investigated the influence of nonionic surfactant Brij30 or glucose (0.01 wt%) on the formation of iron precipitates in iron(III) chloride solutions for 3 days at 40, 60 and 80 °C. The results showed that the presence of glucose or Brij30 could promote the nanospindle-akaganéite formation and the akaganéite with a length of 300–500 nm obtained at 60 °C was the optimal catalyst for organic photocatalysis degradation. Further, we investigated the capacity of C60 akaganéite for degradation removal of methyl orange (MO) under the action of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) addition and/or UV irradiation, and in the presence of different radical scavengers at pH 4.5. We also researched the effects of various levels of H2O2 and catalyst, and the reaction pH values. It was found that akaganéites could remove almost 100% of MO under 100 mg·L−1 of catalyst and H2O2 at pH 4.5. Akaganéite maintained 86% of MO removal capacity after four successive cycles. Our results can be used as a reference for the synthesis of environmentally functional material and the application in photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutant.