Abstract

Fenton-based electrochemical processes (FEPs) using newly engineered 3D photocatalyst nanocomposites have garnered significant attention owing to their ability to remove emerging contaminants. Despite the development of numerous materials, there is still a need to enhance their efficiency, stability, and recyclability to address the limitations of FEPs. This study seeks to address this issue by investigating sustainable methods to engineer novel 3D core-shell photocatalyst composites for application in FEPs. These materials can update the photo-assisted FEPs activity, and magnetism can be helpful for the easy recyclability of the catalyst. Herein, we successfully synthesized a magnetic and photoactive CuFe2O4@MIL-100(Fe) (CM) composite through sustainable methods and assessed its morphological structure and physicochemical and photocatalytic properties. The catalytic performance of CM was investigated in an undivided RuO2/air-diffusion cell to treat Cefadroxil. The results show that heterogeneous photoelectro-Fenton (HPEF) (100% in 120 min) has higher degradation efficiency than electro-Fenton (100% in 210 min) and electrooxidation (73.3% in 300 min) processes. The superior degradation efficiency of HPEF is attributed to the formation of a large amount of hydroxyl radicals indicating the excellent photocatalytic activity of the material due to the direct excitation of the Fe–O cluster, which boosts the redox reaction of Fe2+/Fe3+. Key operational parameters such as pH, catalyst concentration, current density, and CuFe2O4 proportion on MIL-100(Fe) in the composite were optimized in the HPEF process. The optimized composite exhibited good stability and easy recyclability, allowing high removal efficiency, which can be kept up after five cycles of 90 min. High degradation performance was observed using natural sunlight radiations. Additionally, possible catalytic degradation mechanisms in HPEFs were proposed based on radical quenching experiments. This study has significant potential to contribute to the development of more sustainable and effective water treatment strategies.