Selective Fenton-like catalytic oxidation of acid orange II on inorganic heterogeneous molecular imprinted catalysts

Abstract In order to realize the selective oxidation of Fenton-like reaction, an inorganic molecularly imprinted Fe/Al/SiO2 composite (IMIPF) was synthesized by sol-gel method using acid orange II as template. As a comparison, the Fe/Al/SiO2 composite without molecular imprinting was referred to as INIPF. The adsorption performance and Fenton-like catalytic selectivity were also studied with sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate as the coexistence interference. Adsorption results in single systems and binary systems proved that IMIPF owned special molecular recognition and priority adsorption ability of the target pollutant. In addition, both IMIPF and INIPF exhibited high catalytic activity toward the degradation of acid orange II in single systems. Benefited from the preferential adsorption and Fenton-like activity, IMIPF could achieve the goal of selective removal of target pollutants at low concentration in the presence of other pollutants at high concentration in binary systems. Moreover, IMIPF possessed a wide applicable pH range and good reusability.