Enhanced activation of PMS by a novel Fenton-like composite Fe3O4/S-WO3 for rapid chloroxylenol degradation

Jian Lu; Yi Zhou; Liangxiong Ling; Yanbo Zhou

doi:10.1016/j.cej.2022.137067

Enhanced activation of PMS by a novel Fenton-like composite Fe₃O₄/S-WO₃ for rapid chloroxylenol degradation

Chem Eng J. 2022 Oct 15:446:137067. doi: 10.1016/j.cej.2022.137067. Epub 2022 May 19.

Authors

Jian Lu¹, Yi Zhou^{1

2}, Liangxiong Ling¹, Yanbo Zhou^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Environmental Risk Assessment and Control on Chemical Process, East China University of Science and Technology, No. 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai 200237, China.
² Shanghai Institute of Pollution Control and Ecological Security, Shanghai 200092, China.

Abstract

Chloroxylenol (PCMX) is widely used as disinfectant since the epidemic outbreak due to its effective killing of Covid-19 virus. Its stable chemical properties make it frequently detected in surface water. Herein, we successfully modified Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles with S-WO₃ (X-Fe₃O₄/S-WO₃) to accelerate the Fe²⁺/Fe³⁺ cycle. The composite has outstanding PCMX degradation and peroxymonosulfate (PMS) decomposition efficiency over a wide pH range (3.0 ∼ 9.0). 80-Fe₃O₄/S-WO₃/PMS system not only increased PMS decomposition efficiency from 27.7% to 100.0%, but also realized an enhancement of PCMX degradation efficiency by 16 times in comparison with that of Fe₃O₄ alone. The catalyst utilization efficiency reached 0.3506 mmol∙g^-1∙min^-1 which stands out among most Fenton-like catalysts. The composite has excellent degradation ability to a variety of emerging pollutants, such as antibiotics, drugs, phenols and endocrine disrupters, and at least a 90% removal efficiency reached in 10 min. The degradation of PCMX was dominated by HO^•, SO₄ ^•- and ¹O₂. The degradation pathways of PCMX were analyzed in detail. The component WS₂ in S-WO₃ plays a co-catalytic role instead of WO₃. And the exposed active W⁴⁺ _surf. efficiently enhanced the Fe³⁺/Fe²⁺ cycle, thereby complete PMS decomposition and high catalytic efficiency were achieved. Our findings clarify that applying two-dimensional transition metal sulfide WS₂ to modify heterogeneous Fe₃O₄ is a feasible strategy to improve Fenton-like reaction and provide a promising catalyst for PCMX degradation.

Keywords: Chloroxylenol; Fe3O4; Peroxymonosulfate; WS2.