Degradation of SMX with Peracetic Acid Activated by Nano Core-shell Co@NC Catalyst

Abstract

Peracetic acid (PAA), as a new oxidant, has attracted increasing attention in the treatment of refractory organic pollution in sewage. In this study, the nano core-shell Co@NC catalyst was prepared via etching and used to activate PAA to degrade sulfamethoxazole (SMX) in sewage. The results indicated that the degradation rate of SMX reached 98%, and its reaction rate constant was 0.80 min-1 under optimal conditions (catalyst dosage=0.02 g·L-1, PAA concentration=0.12 mmol·L-1, pH=7, SMX concentration=10 μmol·L-1). With the increase in PAA concentration and core-shell Co@NC dosage, the degradation efficiency of SMX increased. The study found that the core-shell Co@NC/PAA system had the best degradation effect on SMX under near-neutral conditions (pH 6.0-8.0), and both acidic and alkaline environments were not conducive to SMX degradation. HCO3- and humic acid showed significant inhibition on the degradation of SMX, whereas Cl- showed weak inhibition. In addition, through a free radical quenching experiment and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) detection, acetoxy radical (CH3CO2CO3·) were the main active species for the degradation of organic pollutants in the system. Transformation products (TPs) of SMX were analyzed by U-HPLC-Q-Exactive Orbitrap HRMS, and a possible degradation path of SMX was proposed. At the same time, the catalyst recycling experiment showed that the nano core-shell Co@NC catalyst had good stability and reusability.