Preparation, Characterization and Catalytic Activity Study of Nanosized Fe2O3-CuO-MgO System

Abstract

Nanomaterials have attracted developing interest due to their specific structure and various properties. Nanostructured materials have promising applications in the fields of industrial catalysis and green chemistry areas as wastewater treatment. Fe2O3/MgO system has been used as a catalyst and as an adsorbent material. The formula xFeMgO will be used throughout this work to represent the different composites where x refers to the molar % Fe3+. The molar ratios were 1, 2, 5, 10, 25 and 50 % Fe2O3 on MgO. xFeMgO nanomaterials were synthesized using three different methods, impregnation FeMgOIM, coprecipitation methods where one used ammonium hydroxide FeMgON as the precipitating agent and the other urea FeMgOU and finally FeMgOSG which was prepared by sol-gel method. All the prepared nanomaterials were calcined at 500°C for 3 h. yCuFeMgOIM samples were prepared by impregnation and y describes 1, 3, 5 and 7 % molar ratios of CuO. The prepared catalysts were used for carbon nanotubes CNTs and carbon nanofibers CNFs synthesis via a catalytic chemical vapor deposition (CCVD) technique at atmospheric pressure. The prepared catalysts were used also to catalyze the ethanol conversion using flow method within the temperature range of 200 - 400°C, at atmospheric pressure. All synthesized nanomaterials were used as adsorbents in order to remove two organic dyes (Remazol Red RB-133 and methylene blue MB) from wastewater. The prepared catalysts were characterized by XRD, SBET, and TEM while the obtained CNTs and CNFs were characterized by SEM and TEM tools.