Material characterization combined with simple green chemistry method for integrated analysis of catalyst performance: A case study on MIL-53(Fe)

Paper microzones method (PMZs) has attracted the attention of scientists as they can detect changes in substance content with just one drop of solution and are not limited by the experimental site. Herein, MIL-53(Fe) was synthesized and analyzed for the first time by paper microzones (PMZs) method to explore the possibility of green chemistry approach to analyze catalyst performance. Firstly, the prediction and kinetic analysis of the methyl orange (MO) adsorption performance of MIL-53(Fe) was carried out by PMZs method, then its integrated adsorption-photocatalytic performance on tetracycline was briefly verified and elaborated the related mechanism. By measuring the color values of MO droplets under different color channels, it can be further seen that the color values in gray as well as in Red(B), Green(G), and Blue(B) channels are significantly different in the range of 0 mg/L∼30 mg/L, and the order of contrast is B>gray>G>R. The LOD value of PMZs method was 1.217 mg/L, LOQ value was 3.689 mg/L, and the R2 value of linear correlation coefficient was 0.978. The photocatalytic results showed that MIL-53(Fe) had a good adsorption-photocatalytic synergistic effect. Hence, it can be found that the photocatalytic experiments were carried out smoothly after the prediction and comparative analysis of the catalyst performance by PMZs method, thus saving the time and cost for screening the adsorption performance of the adsorbent. Our results show that the PMZs method combined with material characterization can better verify the adsorption properties when studying the adsorption performance of MIL-53 (Fe) on MO, which brings new research ideas and green chemistry concepts to the related research field.