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Ascorbic acid promoted sulfadimidine degradation in the magnetite-activated persulfate system by facilitating the Fe(III)/Fe(II) cycle

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Abstract

Persulfate (PS) activation technologies were of significant importance to the organic contaminant treatment. In this study, ascorbic acid (AA) was introduced to the traditional PS-activated process by using magnetite (Fe3O4) as the activator; herein, the degradation efficiency of sulfadimidine (SM2) was improved from 30 to 93% within 3 h, and the observed removal rate was about 8.0 times higher than that of the Fe3O4/PS system. These improvements were found to be induced by the added AA because it could reduce the surface Fe(III) to Fe(II) on Fe3O4 and thus facilitate the Fe(III)/Fe(II) cycle, which was conducive to producing reactive oxygen species (ROSs) in the oxidation process during PS activation. Meanwhile, AA could also promote the Fe(III)/Fe(II) cycle in the homogeneous solution, further advancing the PS decomposition for SM2 degradation. The ROS trapping experiments indicated that SM2 removal in the Fe3O4/PS/AA system was attributed to •OH and •SO4−, and •SO4− was the dominant ROS. Moreover, the reusability test experiment revealed that magnetite retained good activity after five cycles in the Fe3O4/AA/PS system. This study provides a promising PS activation technology for efficient organics contaminant treatment.

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All data generated or analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2023A1515012134, 2022A1515010368), Characteristic Innovation Projects Guangdong Provincial Department of Education (Natural Science Category, 2021KQNCX084), and the Student Science and Technology Innovation Cultivating Program of Guangdong Province (pdjh2021b0457).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Civil Engineering, Shaoguan University, Shaoguan, 512023, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaobing Wang, Meiting Zhi, Jingyi Li, Kunchuang Lin, Xueqin Lin & Yue Hu

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  1. Xiaobing Wang
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  2. Meiting Zhi
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  3. Jingyi Li
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  4. Kunchuang Lin
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Xiaobing Wang, Meiting Zhi, Jingyi Li, Kunchuang Lin, Xueqin Lin, and Yue Hu. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Xiaobing Wang, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yue Hu.

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Wang, X., Zhi, M., Li, J. et al. Ascorbic acid promoted sulfadimidine degradation in the magnetite-activated persulfate system by facilitating the Fe(III)/Fe(II) cycle. Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 6481–6491 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-31566-6

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