Preparation of spinel cobalt ferrite with controlled constituent supported on biopolymer as peroxydisulfate activator for glyphosate-contaminated wastewater treatment
Abstract
This study optimized the extraction of biopolymer from waste banana skins (BiP) and developed spinel cobalt ferrite nanoparticles with tunable compositions (CoFe2+xO4; x=0.0, 0.3, and 0.5), which were subsequently supported the extracted biopolymer at various loadings (0-25 wt%) to form CoFe2+xO4@BiP-y catalysts. These catalysts were employed to activate peroxydisulfate (PS) for glyphosate (GPS) mineralization in aqueous media. Structural characterization confirmed spinel structural retention and Co2+ incorporation into crystal lattice despite Fe content variation. As the Co:Fe ratio increased from 1:2.0 to 1:2.3, GPS mineralization, evaluating via COD removal, improved significantly, from 51.9 to 67.7% in CoFe2+xO4/PS system. Among various compositions, CoFe2.3O4@BiP-15 exhibited the highest performance in activating PS, achieving 95.7% GPS removal and a reaction rate of 0.025/min under optimal conditions of pH 5.0, 0.4 g/L CoFe2.3O4@BiP-15, 300 mg/L PS. The proposed mechanism comprised both radical and non-radical pathways, involving the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as 1O2, *SO4-, *OH, and *O2-, participated in GPS mineralization. Notably, the promoted removal efficiency of GPS was primarily attributed to the iron enrichment in CoFe2.3O4, which not only accelerated the regeneration of Co2+- the main catalytic active species responsible for PS activation, but also enabled Fe2+ to directly activate PS via electron transfer, generating more ROS. Additionally, the well-dispersion of CoFe2.3O4 on the BiP enriched oxygen containing functional groups (OCFGs), playing role as active sites, donating electron for PS to form ROS. Reusability tests showed stable GPS removal over four consecutive cycles. The findings provided the rational controlled constituents design of biopolymer supported-bimetallic catalyst for advanced oxidation processes in mineralization of recalcitrant organic contaminants.