Facilely synthesized cobalt doped hydroxyapatite as hydroxyl promoted peroxymonosulfate activator for degradation of Rhodamine B.

Hydroxyapatite (HAP) is a promising supporter of catalyst due to its potential in immobilizing metals stably. HAP supported cobalt-based catalyst (Co-HAP) was synthesized via a facile ion exchange-calcination method to reduce the Co leaching. The synthesized Co-HAP was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscope (TEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Cobalt ions were incorporated into HAP structure and CoO on HAP surface. Co-HAP showed satisfactory performance in peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation for eliminating Rhodamine B (RhB) in aqueous solution. Co-HAP even revealed a better activity than that of CoFeO. •OH, SO and O were all involved in RhB degradation and O played a leading role. High content of surface oxygen groups could be found on Co-HAP after RhB degradation, which might be resulted from the high amounts of hydroxyl groups. The presence of hydroxyl groups performed the co-catalytic activity of PMS activation in Co-HAP/PMS system.