Photo-Fenton degradation of methylene blue using hematite-enriched slag under visible light

This study aims to find a suitable method to transform the amorphous iron oxides obtained from the incineration of combustible waste slag into hematite. The resulting samples were utilized as heterogeneous photocatalysts for the photo-Fenton degradation of methylene blue (MB) aqueous solution. A good correlation was found between the MB degradation and the amount of hematite phase as confirmed by XRD and Mössbauer measurements. The largest rate constant (k) was (4.1 ± 0.08) × 10−2 min−1 for MB decomposition under visible-light for the sample N5-50-800. The results are promising for both low-cost photocatalysts and recycling of combustible waste slags.