The influence of structure on the azo dye decolourization ability of ternary Fe-rich amorphous alloy

Fe66.3B16.6Y17.1 amorphous structures designed based on a competitive atomic cluster model shows excellent catalytic ability due to the competition between two different Fe-rich clusters Fe11Y3 and Fe8B2. In this work, it was demonstrated that the minor elements play a key role in the catalytic behaviors by changing the local structure around Fe. Fe66.3B16.6Y17.1 based on Fe11Y3 and Fe8B2 clusters achieves the decolourization efficiency up to 99.2% on the azo dye Orange G (OG). The replacement of Fe11Y3 cluster by Fe11Zr3 or Fe11Nb3 leads to significantly deteriorated efficiencies of 13.2% for Fe66.3B16.6Zr17.1 and 10.4% for Fe66.3B16.6Nb17.1 at identical testing conditions. The analysis on their local structures and the bonding states of Fe revealed that the weak interactions between atoms in these structures are related to the decolourization ability and catalytic effect directly. X-ray photoelectron spectra show that the jj coupling in the Fe 2p53d7 final state is a good predictor for the decolourization ability and catalytic effect of these Fe-rich amorphous structures.