Persulfate activation by MnCuS nanocomposites for degradation of organic pollutants

Abstract

MnCuS nanocomposites were prepared by one-pot simple hydrothermal method, the crystallinity and morphology were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), and Brunauer, Emmett and Teller (BET) respectively. Then, the materials were then used to activate persulfate (Na2S2O8) in Orange II degradation. The degradation efficiency of MnCuS with Mn:Cu mole ratio of 1:1 reached 98.2% within 120 min under visible light, which have higher efficiency than other mole ratios of samples or pure MnS and CuS, Furthermore, the nanocomposites also showed good recycling stability performance, and the degradation efficiency could still reach 97.1% even after three degradation cycles. The mechanism of activating Na2S2O8 by MnCuS is proposed as follows: the cycling of active sites of Cu(Ⅰ)/Cu(Ⅱ) and Mn(Ⅱ)/Mn(III) catalyzed Na2S2O8 to produce sulfate radicals (SO4•−), which improved the catalytic degradation ability of MnCuS/Na2S2O8/visible light system.