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Emerging Advanced Oxidation Processes for the Elimination of Pollutants

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 December 2022) | Viewed by 5727

Special Issue Editors

College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Interests: environmental geochemistry; mechanism of migration and degradation of organic pollutants on environmental interfaces; devlopment and application of novel pollution control technologies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
College of Resources and Environment, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China
Interests: advanced oxidation processes; transportation and transformation of pollutants in the environment; photochemical transformation; heavy metal pollution control; polymer adsorbent; hybrid polymeric materials; polymeric nanocomposites; polymer degradation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Clean and safe water is essential for the sustainable development of human society and the environment.  The existing water and wastewater treatment infrastructures have been demonstrated to be inefficient in removing a wide range of emerging contaminants and meeting the more strigent water quality standards.   There is a significant need to develop advanced treatment technologies to mitigate and/or eliminate the potential risk posed by emerging contaminants.   Capable of destructing refractory organic pollutants, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), which utilize powerful radicals (e.g., hydroxyl radical, sulfate radical, superoxide radical), have received a growing amount of attention over the past few decades.  Nonetheless, new types of pollutants may pose a special challenge, while the large-scale implementation of AOPS is often hindered by poor environmental friendliness and high energy consumption/cost.  Therefore, continuous research and development of AOPs to establish green and economical treatment methods that are suitable for large-scale application is critical for tackling the challenges of emerging contaminants. This Special Issue, entitled “Emerging Advanced Oxidation Processes for the Elimination of Pollutants”, which belongs to the section of “Environmental Sustainability and Applications” in Sustainability, focuses on the fundamental and applied research on the environmental applications of AOPs.  We are pleased to invited you to contribute your relevant manuscripts focusing on the following topics (not limited to): 

(1) Kinetics and mechanism of pollutant degradation in AOPs;

(2) Application of AOPs in elimination of emerging pollutants;

(3) Formation and evolution of the degradation by-products during AOPs;

(4) Application of nanomaterials in AOPs;

(5) Development of AOPs reactors and field implementation;

(6) Performance comparison of AOP-based processes with conventional treatment technologies.

In this Special Issue, both original research articles and reviews are welcome. The keywords listed below represent a few of the priorities.  We look forward to receiving your contribution.

Prof. Dr. Hefa Cheng
Dr. Xiande Xie
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • advanced oxidation processes
  • water treatment
  • wastewater treatment
  • photochemical oxidation
  • Fenton-like reactions
  • electro-Fenton
  • ultrasonic degradation
  • persulfate oxidation
  • ozonation
  • emerging pollutants
  • redox of iron/manganese

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 2817 KiB  
Article
Efficient Degradation of Carbendazim by Ferrate(VI) Oxidation under Near-Neutral Conditions
by Yu Li and Hefa Cheng
Sustainability 2022, 14(20), 13678; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su142013678 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1135
Abstract
Carbendazim (CBZ), a widely used fungicide in agriculture, is frequently detected in aquatic environment and causes significant concerns because of its endocrine-disrupting activity. This study investigated the degradation kinetics of CBZ in ferrate (Fe(VI)) oxidation, the influence of water matrices, and the transformation [...] Read more.
Carbendazim (CBZ), a widely used fungicide in agriculture, is frequently detected in aquatic environment and causes significant concerns because of its endocrine-disrupting activity. This study investigated the degradation kinetics of CBZ in ferrate (Fe(VI)) oxidation, the influence of water matrices, and the transformation pathways of CBZ. The second-order rate constant for the reaction between CBZ and Fe(VI) decreased from 88.0 M−1·s−1 to 1.6 M−1·s−1 as the solution pH increased from 6.2 to 10.0. The optimum reaction conditions were obtained through response surface methodology, which were pH = 7.8 and [Fe(VI)]/[CBZ] = 14.2 (in molarity), and 96.9% of CBZ could be removed under such conditions. Cu2+ and Fe3+ accelerated the degradation of CBZ by Fe(VI) oxidation; common cations and anions found in natural water had no significant effect, while the presence of humic acid also accelerated the degradation of CBZ. Based on the degradation products identified, degradation of CBZ in Fe(VI) oxidation proceeded via three pathways: namely, hydroxylation, removal of the methoxyl group, and cleavage of the C–N/C=N bond. The initial reaction site of CBZ oxidation by Fe(VI) was also supported by the atomic partial charge distribution on the CBZ molecule obtained from density functional theory (DFT) calculations. CBZ in natural water matrices was efficiently removed by Fe(VI) oxidation under near-neutral conditions, indicating that Fe(VI) oxidation could be a promising treatment option for benzimidazole fungicides. Full article
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16 pages, 6296 KiB  
Article
Investigation on Mechanism of Tetracycline Removal from Wastewater by Sinusoidal Alternating Electro-Fenton Technique
by Yihui Zhou, Bonian Hu, Xiaojie Zhuang, Jinxian Qiu, Tao Xu, Muping Zeng, Xi He and Gang Yu
Sustainability 2022, 14(4), 2328; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14042328 - 18 Feb 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1559
Abstract
Sinusoidal alternating electro-Fenton (SAEF) is a new type of advanced electrochemical oxidation technology for the treatment of refractory organic wastewater. In this research, the removal performance and degradation mechanism of tetracycline (TC) were investigated, and the optimal operation parameters were determined. Scanning electron [...] Read more.
Sinusoidal alternating electro-Fenton (SAEF) is a new type of advanced electrochemical oxidation technology for the treatment of refractory organic wastewater. In this research, the removal performance and degradation mechanism of tetracycline (TC) were investigated, and the optimal operation parameters were determined. Scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) were used to characterize the morphology, elemental composition, crystal structure, function groups of sludge produced by SAEF. UV-visible spectroscopy (UV) and liquid chromatograph-mass spectrometer (LC-MS/MS) were employed to determine the concentration of organic matter, middle products of decomposed organics in the SAEF process, respectively. The results showed that the removal rates of TC, chemical oxygen demand (COD), electric energy consumption (EEC) and the amount of produced sludge (Ws) are 94.87%, 82.42%, 1.383 kWh⋅m−3 and 0.1833 kg⋅m−3 by SAEF, respectively, under the optimal conditions (pH = 3.0, conductivity (κ) = 1075 μS⋅cm1, current density (j) = 0.694 mA⋅cm2, initial c (TC) = 100 mg·dm−3, c [30%H2O2] = 1.17 cm3⋅dm−3, frequency (f) = 50 Hz, t = 120 min). Compared with pure direct electro-Fenton (DEF) or sinusoidal alternating current coagulation (SACC), SAEF was a highly effective method with low-cost for the treatment of TC wastewater. It was found that the conjugated structure of TC was destroyed to generate intermediate products, and then most of them was gradually mineralized into inorganic materials in the SAEF process. Full article
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16 pages, 2863 KiB  
Article
Cr(VI) Adsorption from Aqueous Solution by UiO-66 Modified Corncob
by Hongzhong Xie, Yanlei Wan, Hao Chen, Guangcheng Xiong, Lingqing Wang, Qi Xu, Xiang Li and Qiuhong Zhou
Sustainability 2021, 13(23), 12962; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132312962 - 23 Nov 2021
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 1960
Abstract
To adsorb hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) in polluted water, this paper prepared a UiO-66 (Zr6O4(OH)4(BDC)12) modified granular corncob composite adsorbent by hydrothermal method with in situ loading of UiO-66 on pretreated corncob particles. The physicochemical properties [...] Read more.
To adsorb hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) in polluted water, this paper prepared a UiO-66 (Zr6O4(OH)4(BDC)12) modified granular corncob composite adsorbent by hydrothermal method with in situ loading of UiO-66 on pretreated corncob particles. The physicochemical properties of the synthesized samples were characterized. Batch adsorption experiments were conducted to investigate the adsorption process of aqueous Cr(VI) under various conditions (different ionic strength, pH and co-existing anions). The results showed that UiO-66 was successfully loaded on the modified corncob particles. The isothermal adsorption data of Cr(VI) adsorption by the UiO-66 modified corncob fit well with the Langmuir model with the maximum adsorption capacity of Cr(VI) on UiO-66@Corn+ being 90.04 mg/g. UiO-66 loading could increase Cr(VI) adsorption capacity of Corn+. The kinetic study showed that the equilibrium time for Cr(VI) adsorption on UiO-66 modified corncob was about 180 min and the kinetic data followed the pseudo-secondary kinetic model. The Cr(VI) adsorption capacity on UiO-66@Corn+ decreased with the increasing solution pH, and the optimum pH range was 4–6. The ionic strength has little effect on the Cr(VI) adsorption capacity, but the coexistence of CO32−, SO42− and PO43− in the solution could significantly decrease the equilibrium adsorption capacity of Cr(VI). The adsorption mechanism analysis showed that Cr(VI) was adsorbed on the surface of adsorbents through electrostatic attraction and was reduced further to the less toxic Cr(III) by the electron donor on the surface of adsorbent. The electrostatic interaction was the main force affecting the adsorption of Cr(VI) by UiO-66. UiO-66@Corn+ had an excellent removal efficiency of Cr(VI) and excellent reusability. UiO-66@Corn+ could effectively remove Cr(VI) from water and have a promising application. Full article
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