Iron Electrodeposition at High Surface Area Activated Carbon Material Using a Rotating Disk-Slurry Electrode Technique

An effort to devolop an electrochemically smaller and well- dispersed iron material on a high surface area carbon material is required for heterogenous Electro-Fenton applications. Iron has been the most common metal used in Electro-Fenton process. Here, a rotating disk-slurry electrode (RoDSE) technique is presented as a method to electrochemically prepare bulk Fe/carbon material avoiding a constant contact of the carbon support to an electrode surface during the electrodeposition process. The Fe/carbon material was prepared by using a slurry solution that was saturated with activated carbon in 0.1 M H₂SO₄. The iron precursor added to the slurry solution was FeCl₃. The electrochemically prepared Fe/carbon was characterized and electrochemical experiments were carried out to examine their degradation activity for a typical dye and stability compared with a homogenous Electro-Fenton process. The RoDSE material showed major and faster degradation demonstrating that the use of the RoDSE technique is an effective method to prepare bulk quantities of activated carbon-supported iron for heterogenous Electro-Fenton applications via an electrochemical route.