A novel design of self-assembled metal-organic frameworks MIL-53(Fe) modified resin as a catalyst for catalytic degradation of tetracycline

Chloromethyl styrene-divinylbenzene (PS–Cl) resin was usually chemically modified for the adsorption of heavy metal ions in wastewater. However, this work will introduce a new application of resin for catalytic degradation of antibiotics. The core-shell PS-NH2@MIL-53(Fe) catalyst was fabricated by simple two-step route including chemical synthesis and step-by-step self-assembly strategy. The catalysts exhibited excellent catalytic activity toward the degradation of tetracycline (TC) in the presence of H2O2, with a degradation efficiency and degradation rate constant (k) of 94.15% and 0.05643 min−1 within initial 20 min, respectively. Moreover, the mineralization and stability of PS-NH2@MIL-53(Fe) both showed excellent performance. The advantage of PS-NH2@MIL-53(Fe) is that the degradation efficiency of TC could be modulated by the number of self-assembly. Additionally, we utilized the Yellow River water to explore the effect of the catalyst for TC removal in the actual wastewater treatment. Meanwhile, several possible catalytic degradation pathways were analyzed on the basis of using HPLC-MS to detect the intermediates generated in the process of catalytic degradation, and a potential catalytic degradation mechanism was proposed. In brief, the new application of amination resin modified by MIL-53(Fe) in catalytic degradation of TC shows promising prospect, especially in the field of environmental remediation.