Pre-accumulation and in-situ destruction of diclofenac by a photo-regenerable activated carbon fiber supported titanate nanotubes composite material: Intermediates, DFT calculation, and ecotoxicity

Chenyuan Dang; Fengbin Sun; Huan Jiang; Taobo Huang; Wen Liu; Xingmin Chen; Haodong Ji

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123225

Pre-accumulation and in-situ destruction of diclofenac by a photo-regenerable activated carbon fiber supported titanate nanotubes composite material: Intermediates, DFT calculation, and ecotoxicity

J Hazard Mater. 2020 Dec 5:400:123225. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123225. Epub 2020 Jun 18.

Authors

Chenyuan Dang¹, Fengbin Sun¹, Huan Jiang¹, Taobo Huang¹, Wen Liu², Xingmin Chen³, Haodong Ji⁴

Affiliations

¹ College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, The Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, Beijing 100871, PR China.
² College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, The Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, Beijing 100871, PR China; The Beijing Innovation Center for Engineering Science and Advanced Technology (BIC-ESAT), Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China; Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, PR China.
³ College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, PR China.
⁴ College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, The Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, Beijing 100871, PR China; The Beijing Innovation Center for Engineering Science and Advanced Technology (BIC-ESAT), Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China. Electronic address: jihaodong@pku.edu.cn.

PMID: 32585518
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123225

Abstract

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) have been widely detected in ecosystems. However, effective water purification technologies for PPCPs degradation are lacking. In this work, an active activated carbon fiber supported titanate nanotubes (TNTs@ACF) composite was synthesized via one-step hydrothermal process, which was applied for adsorption and photocatalytic degradation of PPCPs under simulated solar light. Characterizations indicated that the successful grafting of TNTs onto ACF was achieved and surface modification occurred. Diclofenac (DCF, a model PPCPs) was rapidly adsorbed onto TNTs@ACF, and subsequently photodegraded (98.8 %) under solar light within 2 h. TNTs@ACF also performed well over a wide range of pH, and was resistant to humic acid. The good adsorption and photocatalytic activity of TNTs@ACF was attributed to the well-defined hybrid structure, enabling corporative adsorption of DCF by TNTs and ACF, and extending the light absorbance to visible region. Furthermore, the description of degradation pathway and evaluation of ecotoxicity for DCF and its intermediates/byproduct were proposed based on experimental analysis, density functional theory (DFT) calculation and quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) analysis, respectively, indicating the photocatalytic degradation of DCF can offer the step-by-step de-toxicity. Our study is expected to offer new strategy as "pre-accumulation and in-situ destruction" for environmental application.

Keywords: Activated carbon fiber; Adsorption; PPCPs; Photo-regeneration; Titanate.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adsorption
Carbon Fiber
Charcoal
Density Functional Theory
Diclofenac / toxicity
Ecosystem
Nanotubes*
Water Pollutants, Chemical* / toxicity

Substances

Carbon Fiber
Water Pollutants, Chemical
Diclofenac
Charcoal