Unravelling the activation mechanism of oxidants using copper ferrite nanopowder and its application in the treatment of real waters contaminated by phenolic compounds

Copper ferrites (CuFe2O4) nanopowder was prepared via hydrothermal method followed by annealing at 500 °C, and XRD, SEM, XPS and UPS were employed for its characterization. CuFe2O4 was tested for the catalytic degradation of bisphenol A (BPA) in the dark and under UVA light, both in the presence of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) or peroxydisulfate (PDS) as radical precursor under natural pH of 6.2. While the individual photo-induced processes i.e., photocatalysis (using CuFe2O4 alone) and photolysis of either PMS or PDS, exhibited limited efficiencies in BPA degradation, a significant increase of performance was observed by combining CuFe2O4 and UVA light with either PMS or PDS with a synergy effect of 3.8 and 34.1, respectively. Under the optimal conditions, employing 0.5 g/L of nanopowder, the degradation constant of 25 µM BPA was 0.211 min−1 with 2 mM of PMS and 0.018 min−1 with 2 mM of PDS, and resulted in the complete degradation of BPA within less than 20 min. The activation mechanism of PMS and PDS using CuFe2O4 was elucidated, revealing sulfate radicals as the primary reactive species in PMS-containing systems, whereas a predominantly non-radical pathway was observed in the presence of PDS. Indeed, advanced spectroscopic techniques indicated that surface copper played an important role in the non-radical pathway. Furthermore, the CuFe2O4/PMS/UVA system exhibited high performance in the degradation of different phenolic compounds including BPA, phenol and p-nitrophenol in real water matrices. These achievements were observed across different real water matrices with a particular emphasis on sewage treatment plant water.