Efficient degradation and toxicity reduction of tetracycline by recyclable ferroferric oxide doped powdered activated charcoal via peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation

Abstract

Iron-mediated activation of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) has long been of a great interest for the effective oxidation of micropollutants. In this study, ferroferric oxide doped powdered activated charcoal (PAC) was prepared by a chemical co-precipitation method in which abundant ferroferric oxide nanocatalyst (FONC) were immobilized on the PAC. The catalyst (FONC@PAC) enabled an efficient degradation of tetracycline via activation of PMS over a wide range of pH and the removal efficiency could reach up to 86.9%. It was verified that the surface-bound SO₄^•− and ¹O₂ were the predominant reactive oxygen species in the catalytic process. A possible degradation pathway of TC was deduced and the toxicity of treated wastewater was drastically reduced after the catalytic degradation. Meanwhile, the catalyst demonstrated a decent degradation performance even after four recycles and suffered from little iron loss. The novel catalyst demonstrated its great potential for the removal of antibiotics in the wastewater.