Ntelane Tau S, Feleni Usisipho, Mthombeni Nomcebo H, Kuvarega Alex T
Institute for Nanotechnology and Water Sustainability, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, University of South Africa, Florida, 1710 Johannesburg, South Africa; Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, University of South Africa, Florida, 1710, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Institute for Nanotechnology and Water Sustainability, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, University of South Africa, Florida, 1710 Johannesburg, South Africa.
J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Jan 15;654(Pt A):660-676. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.10.077. Epub 2023 Oct 17.
Sulfamethoxazole (SMX) is a prevalent sulfonamide antibiotic found in the environment, and it has a variety of detrimental effects on environmental sustainability and water safety. Recently, the combination of photocatalysis and sulfate radical-based advanced oxidation processes (SR-AOPs) has attracted a lot of interest as a viable technique for degradation of refractory pollutants. In this study, a visible light active CuFeS supported on dendritic mesoporous silica-titania (CuFeS-DMST) photocatalyst was synthesized to improve the ability of TiO to activate persulfate (PS) by introducing CuFeS (Fe/Fe, Cu/Cu redox cycles). The CuFeS-DMST/PS/Vis system demonstrated superior SMX degradation efficiency (88.9%, 0.0146 min) than TiO because of reduced e/h recombination, excellent charge separation and mobility, and a greater surface area than TiO. Furthermore, after four consecutive photocatalytic cycles, the system demonstrated moderate stability. From chemical quenching tests, O, h, O, SO and OH were found to be the main reactive oxidizing species. The formed intermediates during the degradation process were identified, and degradation mechanisms were proposed. This study proposes a viable technique for activating PS using a low-cost, stable, and high-surface-area TiO-based photocatalyst, and this concept can be applied to design photocatalysts for water treatment.
磺胺甲恶唑（SMX）是一种在环境中普遍存在的磺胺类抗生素，它对环境可持续性和水安全有多种不利影响。最近，光催化与基于硫酸根的高级氧化工艺（SR-AOPs）的结合作为一种降解难降解污染物的可行技术引起了广泛关注。在本研究中，合成了一种负载在树枝状介孔二氧化硅-二氧化钛（CuFeS-DMST）上的可见光活性CuFeS光催化剂，通过引入CuFeS（Fe/Fe、Cu/Cu氧化还原循环）来提高TiO活化过硫酸盐（PS）的能力。由于减少了电子/空穴复合、具有优异的电荷分离和迁移率以及比TiO更大的表面积，CuFeS-DMST/PS/Vis系统表现出比TiO更高的SMX降解效率（88.9%，0.0146分钟）。此外，经过四个连续的光催化循环后，该系统表现出适度的稳定性。通过化学猝灭试验，发现O、h、O、SO和OH是主要的活性氧化物种。鉴定了降解过程中形成的中间体，并提出了降解机制。本研究提出了一种使用低成本、稳定且高表面积的TiO基光催化剂活化PS的可行技术，这一概念可应用于设计用于水处理的光催化剂。
