Design and synthesis of Fe2O3-bentonite for the degradation of Methyl Orange by heterogeneous photo-Fenton process

Fe2O3-bentonite was fabricated by a facile preparation method as a heterogeneous catalyst, for the degradation of methyl orange by photo-Fenton process. Bentonite as an efficient substrate with acceptable surface area plays the remarkable role for boosting the catalytic activity of iron oxide. The catalyst was characterized by XRD and FT-IR analysis which showed that Fe2O3 is formed over the bentonite. The results also showed that the highest efficiency of Fe2O3-bentonite was calculated to be about 98.3% for the degradation of methyl orange. The degradation kinetics was also investigated which illustrated that the MO degradation follows the Pseudo-first order kinetics model.