A Comparative Study on the Pollutant Removal Efficiency of CoFe2O4@HKUST-1 MOF and CoFe2O4 Nanoparticles

In this work, CoFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles were fabricated by the Pechini sol–gel technique. Then, Cu 3 (BTC) 2 or HKUST-1 metal–organic framework was used to prepare Co-ferrite@HKUST-1 composite. The as-synthesized composite powder and Co-ferrite nanoparticles were compared by their performance for methyl orange (MO) and methylene blue (MB) degradation. X-ray diffractometry (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) were utilized to evaluate the as-prepared samples. Results showed that the average grain size was about 20–30 nm. The magnetic saturation value for Co-ferrite nanoparticles and Co-ferrite@HKUST-1 composite were 65 and 20 emu/g, respectively. Results of the removal efficiency of the Co-ferrite samples approved that just the cation dyes concentrations decreased, whereas in the case of the Co-ferrite@HKUST-1 composite samples both anionic and cationic organic dyes were degraded efficiently.