Establishment of a novel system for photothermal removal of ampicillin under near-infrared irradiation: Persulfate activation, mechanism, pathways and bio-toxicology

One of the most effective ways to address the problems of low solar spectrum utilization in photocatal-ysis and the high cost of persulfate activation technology is to create a cost-effective synergistic pho-tothermal persulfate system. In this work, a brand-new composite catalyst called ZnFe2O4/ Fe3O4@MWCNTs (ZFC) was developed to activate PDS (K2S2O8) from the aforementioned basis. ZFC's sur-face temperature could unbelievably reach 120.6 degrees C in 150 s together with the degrading synergistic sys-tem solution temperature could reach 48 degrees C under near-infrared light (NIR) in 30 min, thus accelerating the ZFC/PDS decolorization rate for reactive blue KN-R (150 mg/L) to 95% in 60 min. Furthermore, the ZFC's ferromagnetism bore it with good cycling performance, allowing it to maintain an 85% decoloriza-tion rate even after 5 cycles with OH., SO4-., 1O2,and O2-. dominating the degrading process. In the mean-time, the DFT calculations of the kinetic constants for the entire process of S2O82-adsorption on Fe3O4 in dye degradation solution were in agreement with the outcomes of the experimental pseudo-first-order kinetic fitting. By analyzing the particular degradation route of ampicillin (50 mg/L) and the possible environmental impact of the intermediate using LC-MS and the toxicological analysis software (T.E.S. T.), respectively, it was shown that this system might function as an environmentally friendly method for removing antibiotics. This work may provide some productive research lines for the creation of a pho-tothermal persulfate synergistic system and suggest fresh approaches to water treatment technology.(c) 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.