Environmental-friendly and low-cost catalysts for peracetic acid (PAA) activation are vital to promote their application for micropollutant degradation in water. In this study, powdered activated carbon (PAC) was reported to improve the degradation of sulfamethoxazole (SMX). The improvement of SMX degradation in the PAC/PAA system was expected to be because of the PAA activation rather than the co-existing H2O2 activation. Non-radical oxidation pathways, including the mediated electron-transfer process and singlet oxygen (1O2), were evidenced to play the dominant roles in the degradation of micro-organic pollutants. The graphitization of PAC, persistent free radicals, and electron-donating groups like C-OH were proposed to contribute to the activation of PAA. High SMX degradation could be achieved in the acidic and neutral conditions in the PAC/PAA system. Overall, higher dosages of PAC (0-0.02 g/L) and PAA (0-100 μM) benefited the degradation of SMX. The presence of HCO3- could lower the SMX degradation significantly, while Cl-, PO43-, and humic acid (HA) only reduced the SMX degradation efficiency a little. Overall, this study offered an efficient non-radical PAA activation method using PAC, which can be effectively used to degrade micro-organic pollutants.
Keywords: metal-free carbocatalysis; non-radical activation; organic pollutants; peracetic acid.