Dissolved oxygen in aeration-driven piezo-catalytic for antibiotics pollutants removal in water

The misuse of antibiotics and oxygen-lacking in aquaculture causes serious water environmental problems. Herein, a piezoelectic odd-layered MoS2 is prepared and applied to piezo-catalytic remove tinidazole (TNZ) and other antibiotic pollutants with aeration as a piezo-driving force. About 89.6% of TNZ can be degraded by MoS2 under aeration in the presence of dissolved oxygen with a reaction rate constant of 0.15 min−1, which is 2.4 times higher than that under N2 atmosphere and quiescence conditions. Quenching experiments and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) tests identify that singlet oxygen (1O2) and superoxide radical (O2•−) are dominant reactive oxygen species in MoS2/aeration system. These results demonstrate that MoS2 can trigger a piezoelectric effect and produce charge carriers to generate reactive oxygen species with dissolved oxygen (DO) for contaminant degradation with the turbulence and water bubbles rupture driven by aeration.