Persulfate activated by Cu46Zr44.5Al7.5Y2 metallic glasses for efficient treatment of high concentration organic wastewater

Abstract

Metallic glasses (MGs) with unique structures and properties have attracted much attention in a variety of chemical reactions. However, the industrial treatment of dye wastewater with ultrahigh concentration still remains a daunting challenge. Herein, it has been reported that Cu46Zr44.5Al7.5Y2 MGs are designed and applied to enhance heterogeneous persulfate (PS) activation for acid orange II (AO II) degradation. The Cu-based MGs exhibit the excellent catalytic behavior and reusability, and the high degradation efficiency (98 %) for 400 mg L−1 AO II dye aqueous solution is achieved within 70 min under PS activation overcoming the ultrahigh concentration limitation. Additionally, the degradation efficiency can still maintain more than 98.4 % within 23 min after reused 10 times. The probable degradation pathway may be proposed based on the intermediate identifications during the whole reaction. The highly reactive species for sulfate radicals, hydroxyl radicals and superoxide radicals (·SO4−, ·OH and ·O2−) generated from the reaction between Cu-based nanocomposites and PS molecules can contribute to improving the catalytic performance. These findings will provide a reasonable and potential strategy to design a catalytic degradation system for ultrahigh concentration dye wastewater treatment.