Development of Zn doping Fe‐Pd bifunctional mesh‐type catalyst for heterogeneous electro‐Fenton system

The Fe‐Pd bifunctional heterogeneous electro‐Fenton catalyst is an attractive option for the degradation of phenol wastewater. However, the catalyst faces issues such as inadequate yield of H2O2 on the Pd species and poor durability. In this study, we developed a bifunctional Fe‐Pd catalyst with Zn embedded into a mesh‐type γ‐Al2O3/Al support (ZnxFePd/γ‐Al2O3/Al). The characterization results indicate that the addition of Zn can improve the dispersion of the Pd component on the catalyst surface and promote the crystallization of Fe3O4. Density functional theory calculations reveal that Zn doping reduces the activation energy of the rate‐controlled step and promotes the desorption of products and intermediates in H2O2 synthesis. The reaction kinetics model was proposed. Furtherly, a possible reaction mechanism was proposed to explain the phenol degradation pathways. The selected Zn1.4FePd/γ‐Al2O3/Al catalyst achieved a degradation rate of 98.8% for phenol. The degradation rate remained above 85% after seven cycles.