Effects of cobalt content on the decolorization properties of Fe-Si-B amorphous alloys

This research attempts to study the effects of Co addition on the decolorization properties of Fe-Si-B amorphous alloys. It was found that Fe-Co-Si-B glassy ribbons (GRs) with different cobalt contents could all decolorize acid orange II (AO) solution through adsorption or reductive degradation no matter at lower or higher temperatures. When Co content was low (10 at.%), Fe-Co-Si-B GRs showed similar decolorization properties to those of Fe-Si-B GRs. With the increase of Co content, reductive degradation of AO by the GRs was not detected basically at lower temperature, and Fe-Co-Si-B GRs could decolorize AO solution only through adsorption; at higher temperature, reductive degradation contributed a lot to the decolorization of AO solution, but adsorption effects still played an important role in the decolorization process. The higher the Co content in the glassy ribbons, the more prominent the adsorption effects, and the more time required to activate reductive degradation of dye molecules. The effects of Co addition on the decolorization properties of Fe-Si-B amorphous alloys are considered to be attributed to the compound effects of zero-valent iron atoms and zero-valent cobalt atoms in the GRs.