Abstract
A significant promotion effect of methanoic acid (MA) was proposed in the photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) degradation of fulvic acid (FA) and the degradation mechanism was also discussed. The PEC degradation property of FA and MA was investigated by an assembled thin-layer PEC reactor in which photoanode is TiO2nanotube arrays (TNAs) material. The result shows that only about 40% of FA was degraded, while MA could be completely degraded at the same condition. When mixing MA with FA, it shows a significant improvement in the degradation of FA. For instance, 50 mg/L FA mixed with 45 mg/L MA could achieve exhausted degradation. The results could be attributed to the promotion effect of MA that enhanced the generation of hydroxyl radicals, which maintain the continuous degradation of both FA and the intermediate products during the PEC process. This study proposed a new way of promoting the PEC degradation of FA as well as removing humus from the polluted water.
Highlights
Fulvic acid (FA) is a primary kind of natural organic matters (NOMs) in the water body [1, 2] and it is a main precursor of disinfection by-products (DBPs), which is known as a kind of harmful materials, leading to carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic effects [3]
The FE-SEM images of the TiO2 nanotube arrays (TNAs) electrode are shown in Figures 3(a) and 3(b)
The degradation rate of FA alone is only about 40%, while it could be significantly improved by addition of methanoic acid (MA)
Summary
Fulvic acid (FA) is a primary kind of natural organic matters (NOMs) in the water body [1, 2] and it is a main precursor of disinfection by-products (DBPs), which is known as a kind of harmful materials, leading to carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic effects [3]. Even if the enhanced coagulation shows its advantage to restrain large quantity of NOMs including colloid humic acid, it is still ineffective to the soluble FA [4, 5]. The advanced oxidation technologies have been a research’s hot spot in removal of NOMs like FA, because it provides hydroxyl radical with strong oxidation ability to decompose organics into small harmless molecules such as CO2 and H2O [6,7,8]. The PEC technology has been seldom reported to be used in the degradation of FA [12,13,14,15]
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