Reported by: LIU Zhongkui
Translated by: QIN Jialu
Edited by: Daniel Penistone
Recently, the research results of Professor Ma Jun’s research group from the School of Municipal Environmental Engineering——“Activation of Peroxymonosulfate by Benzoquinone: A Novel Nonradical Oxidation Process”, was published in a renowned academic journal in the environmental field called “Environmental Science & Technology” (Impact Factor: 5330), as a highlighted article. Harbin Institute of Technology is the first holder and corresponding author institution.
Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) based on peroxides, including Peroxomonosulfate (PMS), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and peroxydisulfate (PDS) are widely used in the remediation of contaminated water or soil. Transition metal oxides and energies (e.g., heat, ultraviolet, and ultrasound) are commonly used to generate sulfate radicals (SO4•–, 2.5–3.1 V) and hydroxyl radicals (•OH, 1.9–2.7 V) which lead to the degradation of sulfamethoxazole (SMX; a frequently detected antibiotic in the environments). The oxidation processes of the traditional radicals such like sulfate radicals and hydroxyl radicals are nonselective, which suffer more interference from background organic matters and decrease the effectiveness of oxidizing a variety of contaminants.
A new study from Professor Ma’s group found that benzoquinone (BQ) could efficiently activate peroxymonosulfate for the degradation of organic micro pollutants. The research group used correlation experiments and found that neither hydroxyl radicals (•OH) nor sulfate radicals (SO4•–) were produced therein. Instead, another reactive oxygen species called singlet oxygen (1O2) was generated. 1O2 is a relatively strong selective oxidant with advantages of less interference with water, high stability and high effectiveness of degradation of organic micro pollutants compared with sulfate radical and hydroxyl radical. This research result has important implications for the development of novel nonradical oxidation processes based on PMS. Meanwhile, a catalytic mechanism was proposed involving a kinetic model which well described the experimental observation that the pH-dependent decomposition rate of PMS was first-order with respect to BQ.
This research was supported by National Key Technology R&D Program, National Science Foundation of China (NSFC), State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, A Foundation for the Author of National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation of PR China, and the Young Talents Support Program Fund.
Research Results
