Adding CuCo2O4-GO to inhibit bromate formation and enhance sulfamethoxazole degradation during the ozone/peroxymonosulfate process: Efficiency and mechanism

In this work, a new type of catalyst CuCo2O4-GO was synthesized as a heterogeneous catalyst, and its control effect on bromate (BrO3−)generation and sulfamethoxazole (SMX) degradation in O3/PMS process was studied. When 100 mg/L CuCo2O4-GO was added to the reaction system, the BrO3− concentration generated was 0.25 μM at pH = 7.0, 100 μM PMS addition and 1.30 mg/min ozone injection after 30 min reaction. Compared with the 6.58 μM BrO3− produced in the control group, the addition of CuCo2O4-GO prominently inhibited the generation of BrO3− and the inhibition efficiency reached 96.17 %. The addition of CuCo2O4-GO inhibited the conversion of hypobromous acid, thereby inhibiting the formation of BrO3−. Meanwhile, the first-order kinetic constant of the degradation of SMX by O3/PMS and O3/PMS/CuCo2O4-GO was 0.163 and 0.422 min−1, respectively. The addition of CuCo2O4-GO promoted the degradation of SMX and the removal efficiency was reached above 98 % after 10 min reaction. According to the optimization of the GO loading ratio, it was found that CuCo2O4-GO with 20 % GO loading had the best promotion effect on the degradation of SMX, and almost completely inhibited the formation of BrO3−. Finally, in the repeated cycle experiment, CuCo2O4-GO could maintain its high catalytic activity and still had a high removal effect on SMX after three repeated uses. Besides, the BrO3− inhibition efficiency was above 80 % after two repeated uses. Therefore, adding synthetic CuCo2O4-GO is an effective way to control the formation of BrO3− and enhance the degradation of SMX in the O3/PMS process.