(1 1 1) Facet-dominant peracetic acid activation by octahedral CoO anchored hollow carbon microspheres for tetracycline degradation

Abstract

Peracetic acid (PAA), an environmental friendly disinfectant, has attracted increasing interest in applications on advanced oxidation processes for treating emerging pollutants. Herein, octahedral cobalt oxide anchored on cation exchange resin (CER)-derived hollow carbon microspheres were fabricated via a facile strategy and employed as the heterogeneous catalyst for PAA activation to degrade tetracycline (TC) antibiotic. Calcination temperature was demonstrated to play a significant role in resulted structure and composition, physicochemical properties and catalytic activities of the cobalt-based compounds/carbon composites. With the optimal catalyst which was calcined at 600 °C, namely the Co@CER-600, complete elimination of TC was achieved within 10 min in Co@CER-600/PAA system. The determination of reactive oxygen species (ROS) indicated that both non-radical (singlet oxygen) and radical (superoxide radical) mechanisms were evidenced in Co@CER-600/PAA system. Particularly, it is notable that the extensively exposed (111) facet in octahedral CoO was confirmed to show remarkable PAA activation activity, therefore promoted the ROS generation process. Considering that facet engineering is a novel whilst important strategy for catalyst regulation, the proposed (111) facet-dominant octahedral CoO anchored hollow carbon microspheres might suggest new inspirations for catalyst design in PAA-based AOPs toward antibiotic contamination remediation.