Peracetic acid activation via the synergic effect of Co and Fe in CoFe-LDH for efficient degradation of pharmaceuticals in hospital wastewater

As an oxidant, peracetic acid (PAA) is gradually applied in advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) for pollutants degradation due to its high oxidation and low toxicity. In this study, the prepared Co2Fe1-LDH showed excellent PAA activation ability for efficient degradation of various pharmaceuticals with a removal efficiency ranging from 82.3% to 100%. Taking sulfamethoxazole (SMX) as a model pharmaceutical, it's found that organic radical (R-O•) with high concentration of 5.27 × 10-13 M is the dominant ROS responsible for contaminants degradation. Further analysis demonstrated that bimetallic synergistic effect between Co and Fe can improve electron transfer ability of Co2Fe1-LDH, resulting in the accelerated conversion of Co from +3 to +2 valence state with a high reaction rate (4.3 × 101-1.483 × 102 M-1 s-1) in this system. Density functional theory (DFT) reveals that C1, C3, C5 and N11 with higher ƒ0 and ƒ-values concentrated on aniline group of SMX are the main attack sites, which is consistent with the results of degradation products. Besides, Co2Fe1-LDH/PAA system can effectively reduce biological toxicity after reaction, due to lower biotoxicity of degradation products and the carbon sources provided by PAA. In application, Co2Fe1-LDH/PAA system was capable of resisting the influence of water matrix and effectively removing pollutants in actual hospital wastewater. Importantly, this study comprehensively evaluated the ability of Co2Fe1-LDH/PAA system to remove organics and improve the biodegradability of actual hospital wastewater, providing guidance for application of PAA activation system.