CuFe2O4 as an Efficient Peroxymonosulfate (PMS) Activator for Sulfamethoxazole (SMX) Removal via Singlet Oxygen in Sewage

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, antibiotic production and consumption are increasing dramatically, and exploring the effective treatment of medical wastewater methods has become a major challenge to environmental protection. SMX as an important sulfonamide antibiotic (SA) has been frequently observed worldwide in contaminated water. CuFe2O4, as a class of promising efficient catalysts to activated PMS has been widely used to degrade organic pollutants. To maximize the catalytic performance of none-support-CuFe2O4, a single-needle electrospinning approach in conjunction with the sol-gel process at 500 °C is employed to synthesize CuFe2O4¬-500 (CFO-500), which was used for PMS activation to degrade SMX. The results indicate that CFO-500 exhibited an excellent degradation rate on SMX in 90 min, which exceeded 94.63 %. The outstanding properties could be mainly ascribed to two aspects: (i) Successfully obtained almost singular copper ferrite phases, which have higher specific surface area and more electron transfer path; (ii) The cooperation of free radical and singlet oxygen, abundant active sites, and excellent electron transfer capability make it a leap in the ability to produce active substances. ·SO4- and singlet oxygen 1O2 played a dominant role according to EPR and quenching tests, especially 1O2. This work may provide a new idea and mechanism for activating PMS to degrade wastewater.