Nano Fe2O3 embedded in montmorillonite with citric acid enhanced photocatalytic activity of nanoparticles towards diethyl phthalate

Nano-Fe₂O₃ embedded in montmorillonite particles (Fe-Mt) were prepared to degrade diethyl phthalate (DEP) with citric acid (CA) under xenon light irradiation. Compared to pristine montmorillonite (Na-Mt), the embedding process increased 14.5-fold of iron content and 1.8-fold of specific surface area. The synthesized Fe-Mt have more oxygen vacancies than Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles (nFe₂O₃), which could induce more reactive oxygen species (ROSs) generation in the presence of CA under xenon lamp irradiation. Fe-Mt with CA enhanced photo-assisted degradation of DEP 2.5 times as compared to nFe₂O₃ with CA. Quenching experiments, electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy and identification of products confirmed that surface-bound ?OH was the main radical to degrade DEP. Common anions (i.e., NO₃^?, CO₃^2?, Cl^?) and humic acid could compete ?OH with DEP and cause slower degradation of DEP. The removal efficiency of DEP was more than 56% with Fe-Mt after three recycles, and the dissolved Fe concentration from Fe-Mt was below 75 μmol/L, indicating Fe-Mt had a good stability as a catalyst. Fe-Mt together with CA appeared to be a promising strategy to remove organic pollutants in surface water, or topsoil under solar irradiation.     

Bacterial abundance and community structure in response to nutrients and photodegraded terrestrial humic acids in a eutrophic lake

The exposure of humic substances to solar radiation can alter their concentration and composition and subsequently influences their bioavailability in aquatic food webs. With eutrophication increasingly prominent in lakes, nutrients, such as inorganic N and P, are a prerequisite for heterotrophic bacteria that use organic matter. Here photodegradation of terrestrial humic acids and nutrient addition were performed to investigate the response of bacterial abundance and community structure to photodegraded humic acids and increased nutrient concentrations in a eutrophic lake. Results showed that the decreasing level of absorption coefficient at 460 nm in the treatment irradiated with 40 W UV lamps was more remarkable than that of the treatment irradiated with 20 W UV lamps and the control. This reduced coefficient corresponds to the greatest decrease in humic acid concentration in the 40 W group. Bacteria showed high abundance after incubation with humic acids which underwent strong irradiation intensity. An increased nutrient concentration significantly affected bacterial abundance. The dominant bacteria were Aquabacterium for the irradiated group, Aquabacterium and Limnobacter for the 20 W group and Flavobacterium and Limnobacter for the 40 W group. Armatimonadetes-gp4 and Sediminibacterium showed evident response to high nutrient concentration. Our results showed that the exposure of terrestrial humic acids to UV light and the increasing concentration of nutrients have obviously changed bacterial community.

     

Roles of oxidant,activator, and surfactant on enhanced electrokinetic remediation of PAHs historically contaminated soil

Electrokinetic (EK) remediation technology can enhance the migration of reagents to soil and is especially suitable for in situ remediation of low permeability contaminated soil. Due to the long aging time and strong hydrophobicity of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from historically polluted soil, some enhanced reagents (oxidant, activator, and surfactant) were used to increase the mobility of PAHs, and remove and degrade PAHs in soil. However, under the electrical field, there are few reports on the roles and combined effect of oxidant, activator, and surfactant for remediation of PAHs historically contaminated soil. In the present study, sodium persulfate (PS, oxidant, 100 g L^?1) or/and Tween 80 (TW80, surfactant, 50 g L^?1) were added to the anolyte, and citric acid chelated iron(II) (CA-Fe(II), activator, 0.10 mol L^?1) was added to catholyte to explore the roles and contribution of enhanced reagents and combined effect on PAHs removal in soil. A constant voltage of 20 V was applied and the total experiment duration was 10 days. The results showed that the removal rate of PAHs in each treatment was PS + CA-Fe(II) (21.3%) > PS + TW80 + CA-Fe(II) (19.9%) > PS (17.4%) > PS + TW80 (11.4%) > TW80 (8.1%) > CK (7.5%). The combination of PS and CA-Fe(II) had the highest removal efficiency of PAHs, and CA-Fe(II) in the catholyte could be transported toward anode via electromigration. The addition of TW80 reduced the electroosmotic flow and inhibited the transport of PS from anolyte to the soil, which decreased the removal of PAHs (from 17.4 to 11.4% with PS, from 21.3 to 19.9% with PS+CA-Fe(II)). The calculation of contribution rates showed that PS was the strongest enhancer (3.3~9.9%), followed by CA-Fe(II) (3.9~8.5%) (with PS), and the contribution of TW80 was small and even negative (?1.4~0.6%). The above results indicated that the combined application of oxidant and activator was conducive to the removal of PAHs, while the addition of surfactant reduced the EOF and the migration of oxidant and further reduced the PAHs removal efficiency. The present study will help to further understand the role of enhanced reagents (especially surfactant) during enhanced EK remediation of PAHs historically contaminated soil.