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Efficient degradation of Congo red by persulfate activated with different particle sizes of zero-valent copper: performance and mechanism

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Abstract

In this study, Congo red (CR) was degraded by different particle sizes of zero-valent copper (ZVC) activated persulfate (PS) under mild temperature. The CR removal by 50 nm, 500 nm, 15 μm of ZVC activated PS was 97%, 72%, and 16%, respectively. The co-existence of SO42- and Cl- promoted the degradation of CR, and HCO3- and H2PO4- were detrimental to the degradation. With the reduction of ZVC particle size, the effect of coexisting anions on degradation grew stronger. The high degradation efficiency of 50 nm and 500 nm ZVC was achieved at pH=7.0, while the high degradation of 15 μm ZVC was achieved at pH=3.0. It was more favorable to leach copper ions for activating PS to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) with the smaller particle size of ZVC. The radical quenching experiment and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) analysis indicated that SO4-•, •OH and •O2- existed in the reaction. The mineralization of CR reached 80% and three possible paths were suggested for the degradation. Moreover, the degradation of 50 nm ZVC can still reach 96% in the 5th cycle, indicating promising application potential in dyeing wastewater treatment.

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Data availability

The data used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

We gratefully acknowledge the generous support provided by the “National Natural Science Foundation of China (51908432)”, the “Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (2018CFB397),” and “Research and Development of Key Engineering Technologies for Ecological Restoration of Highly Polluted Wetlands (ZRZY2022KJ14), China”. We also would like to thank Shiyanjia Lab (www.shiyanjia.com) for the SEM, FTIR, XPS, EPR analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Engineering, Wuhan Textile University, Wuhan, 430073, PR China

    Xi Ni, Qiang Li, Kun Yang & Dongsheng Xia

  2. Engineering Research Center for Clean Production of Textile Dyeing and Printing, Ministry of Education, Wuhan, 430073, PR China

    Qiang Li & Dongsheng Xia

  3. Institute of Spatial Planning of Hubei Province, Wuhan, 430064, China

    Huiyuan Deng

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  1. Xi Ni
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  2. Qiang Li
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  3. Kun Yang
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Xi Ni and Kun Yang participated in the material preparation, data collection, and analysis. The manuscript was written and revised by Xi Ni and Qiang Li. Huiyuan Deng and Dongsheng Xia conceived the idea, designed the experiment, and were involved in the data analysis.

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Correspondence to Qiang Li.

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Ni, X., Li, Q., Yang, K. et al. Efficient degradation of Congo red by persulfate activated with different particle sizes of zero-valent copper: performance and mechanism. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 70054–70064 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27394-3

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