Synthesis of copper/carbon nanofibers by electrostatic spinning toward persulfate activation for treatment of antibiotic wastewater

Antibiotics in water will cause serious harm to human health and ecosystem. Carbon-based materials and transition metals activated peroxodisulfate (PDS) to produce active species, which can degrade residual antibiotics in water. In this paper, Cu/CNF (carbon nanofibers) composites were first prepared by introducing Cu into CNF using electrostatic spinning technology, which was used to activate PDS to degrade tetracycline (TC). The degradation efficiency of Cu/CNF/PDS was 36.23% higher than that of CNF/PDS. The reason is that introducing Cu can increase the number of surface functional groups and specific surface area of CNF, and then improve the catalytic performance. The functional groups and Cu species are the active sites for catalytic PDS. Moreover, the main ways to degrade TC in the Cu/CNF/PDS system are singlet oxygen (1O2) and electron transfer. Based on the above analysis, we modified CNF with transition metal salts, prepared efficient environmental functional materials, and used them for PDS activation, providing a theoretical basis and technical support for the degradation of antibiotic pollutants and creating new ideas for other research.