Humic substances are polyelectrolytic macromolecules; their presence in water leads to many environmental problems without effective treatment. In this work, the elimination of humic acid (HA), a typical humic substance, has been examined through ultraviolet (UV) activation systems in the presence of peroxydisulfate (PDS) and peroxymonosulfate (PMS), respectively. The results indicated that 92.9% and 97.1% of HA were eliminated with rate constants of 0.0328 ± 0.0006 and 0.0436 ± 0.0011 min-1 with 180 and 60 min treatment times at pH 6 and 3 when adding 3 and 1 mmol L-1 oxidant during UV/PDS and UV/PMS, respectively; the corresponding electric energies per order were 0.0287 and 0.0131 kW h m-3. The HA removal was systematically investigated by varying different reaction parameters, including radical scavengers, persulphate dose, solution pH, and initial HA concentration, and by addition of various common ions. Moreover, the decomposition details were identified through the changes in the dissolved organic carbon, unique UV absorbances, and UV spectroscopic ratios. Furthermore, the destruction mechanism was verified by fluorescence spectroscopy, demonstrating that the HA structure was decomposed to small molecular fractions in the two UV/persulphate systems. In addition, the purification of HA by the two UV/persulphate processes was assessed in actual water matrices.
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