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Treatment of wastewater containing organic pollutants in the presence of N-doped graphitic carbon and Co3O4/peroxymonosulfate

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Abstract

The disposal of organic pollutants is one of the important research topics. Some of the studies in this field are based on the degradation of organic pollutants with a catalytic agent. The cobalt tetraoxide/peroxymonosulfate system is an important catalytic system used for the radical degradation of organic pollutants. To increase the catalytic efficiency of such reactions, graphitization of activated carbon used as a support solid and nitrogen doping to the carbon structure are commonly used methods. In this study, cobalt tetraoxide production, N-doping and graphitization were carried out in a single step by heat treatment of activated carbon doped with the phthlocyanine cobalt (II) complex. The catalytic performance of the catalyst/peroxymonosulfate system was investigated by changing the pH, catalyst, and PMS concentration parameters on rhodamine B and 1,3,5 trichlorophenol, which were used as models. It was seen that the catalysts had 97% activity on rhodamine B in 16 min and 100% on 1,3,5 trichlorophenol in 6 min. It was observed that the catalysts continued to show high catalytic activity for five cycles in reusability studies and had a very low cobalt leaching rate. These results are in good agreement with previously published studies. In line with these results, the synthesized N-doped graphitic carbon/Co3O4 catalyst can be used as an effective catalyst for wastewater treatments.

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Abbreviations

Co3O4:

Cobaltite

AC:

Activated carbon

RhB:

Rhodamine B

2,4,6-TCP:

2,4,6-Trichlorophenol

PMS:

Peroxymonosulfate

PS:

Persulfate

XRD:

X-ray powder diffraction

SEM:

Scanning electron microscope

FTIR:

Fourier transform-infrared

BET:

Brunauer–Emmett–Teller

eV:

Electron volt

OH·:

Hydroxyl radical

SO4˙ ¯:

Sulfate radical

O2˙ ¯:

Peroxide radical

1O2 :

Singlet oxygen

Co:

Cobalt

TEM:

Transmission electron microscopy

THF:

Tetrahydrofuran

TBA:

tert-Butyl alcohol

p-BQ:

p-Benzoquinone

QS-DFT:

Quenched solid density functional theory

BJH:

Barret–Joyner–Halende

N2 :

Nitrogen

nm:

Nanometer

Co :

Initial concentration

Ct :

Concentration at time

k:

Fisrt-order reaction constant

EtOH:

Ethanol

TOC:

Total organic carbon

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University, Rize, Turkey

    Hakkı Türker Akçay & Zehra Özçifçi

  2. Central Research Laboratory, Application and Research Centre, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University, Rize, Turkey

    Adem Demir & Turgut Keleş

  3. Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Sinop University, Sinop, Turkey

    Tuğrul Yumak

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  1. Hakkı Türker Akçay
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Akçay, H.T., Demir, A., Özçifçi, Z. et al. Treatment of wastewater containing organic pollutants in the presence of N-doped graphitic carbon and Co3O4/peroxymonosulfate. Carbon Lett. 33, 1445–1460 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42823-022-00452-5

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