Determination of Chlorophenols in Wastewater with Methyl Chloroformate Derivatization, Solid Phase Extraction, and Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry

Humic acid promoted activation of peroxymonosulfate by Fe3S4 for degradation of 2,4,6-trichlorophenol: An experimental and theoretical study

Chlorophenols are difficult to degrade and biohazardous in the natural environment. This study demonstrated that humic acid (HA) could promote Fe₃S₄ activation of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) to degrade 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (TCP), the degradation efficiency of TCP was increased by 33%. The system of Fe₃S₄-HA/PMS produced more reactive oxygen species, and •OH was the dominant ROS. The genealogy of iron oxides together with S⁰ on the Fe₃S₄ surface inhibited PMS activation leading to the significant reduction of TCP degraded (< 70%). These problems could be solved successfully through introducing HA, which facilitated electron transfer and increased the continuous release of iron ions by 2 times. In accordance with the determined density functional theory (DFT), the degradation pathway was put forward, which indicated that TCP dechlorination and oxidation to 2,6-dichloro-1,4-benzoquinone constituted the main degradation pathway. Furthermore, the intermediates that were produced in the main degradation processes of TCP showed lower toxicity than TCP according to results that were obtained utilizing the calculations of quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) together with Toxicity Estimation Software Tool (TEST). Thus, the Fe₃S₄-HA/PMS system was demonstrated to be an efficient and safe technology for organic pollutant degradation in contaminated groundwater and surface water environments.

MOFs-derived magnetic C@Cu-Ni bimetal particles: An efficient peroxymonosulfate activator for 2,4,6-trichlorophenol degradation

In this study, magnetic Cu and Ni bimetallic particles embedded carbon sheets, namely as C@Cu-Ni, was derived via calcining a mixture of Cu-MOFs and Ni-MOFs (mass ratio = 4:6) under N₂ protection and served as a catalyst for the degradation of 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (2,4,6-TCP) by peroxymonosulfate (PMS). The results showed that more than 98.5% of 2,4,6-TCP (10 mg L^-1) was rapidly decomposed at initial pH = 5, PMS = 1 mM and catalyst dosage = 0.1 g L^-1 within 30 min, accompanied by 42.47% removal of total organic carbon (TOC). This fully confirmed that C@Cu-Ni possessed excellent catalytic performance for PMS activation. The radical quenching experiments and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) investigation testified that the reactive oxygen species (ROS) included SO₄^•-, ^•OH, O₂^•- radicals and singlet oxygen (¹O₂), which were responsible for the rapid degradation of 2,4,6-TCP. Among them, O₂^•-and ¹O₂ played a decisive role. Cyclic voltammograms (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) revealed that C@Cu-Ni material possessed superior electrical conductivity and electron transfer, improving its catalytic activity. What is more, C@Cu-Ni displayed excellent stability and could be consecutively used for five times without any decline of catalytic performance. The main intermediates of the 2,4,6-TCP degradation were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) and possible pathways of 2,4,6-TCP degradation were further proposed. The extraordinary stability and superior catalytic activity of C@Cu-Ni coupled with its easy separation from wastewater due to magnetism suggest that the newly synthesized material may offer a promising alternative approach to efficiently degrade organic pollutants by PMS.

Covalent Organic Framework as Fiber Coating for Solid-Phase Microextraction of Chlorophenols Followed by Quantification with Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Headspace solid-phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was adopted for the simultaneous determination of seven chlorophenols (CPs) from honey and canned-yellow-peach samples. A covalent organic framework made of 1,3,5-triformylphloroglucinol (Tp) and benzidine (BD) was used as the SPME fiber coating to preconcentrate the acetylation derivatives of the CPs. The main experimental parameters including derivatization conditions, extraction temperature and time, headspace volume, salt concentration, and desorption temperature were investigated. The fiber showed a high extraction capability for the CPs. The limits of detection (LODs) for the analytes were 0.3-0.7 μg kg^-1 for honey and 0.8-1.8 μg kg^-1 for canned-yellow-peach samples, suggesting good sensitivity for the method. The response linearity was 2.4-250 μg kg^-1 for 2-CP and 3,4-CP and 1.0-150 μg kg^-1 for the other remaining analytes in the honey samples. For the canned-yellow-peach samples, the response linearity was 6.0-300 μg kg^-1 for 2-CP and 3,4-CP and 3.0-200 μg kg^-1 for the others. The correlation coefficients were higher than 0.9919. Good repeatability (RSD < 11.9%) for the method and high recoveries (70.2-113%) of the analytes were observed under the optimal conditions. The established method was satisfactorily applied for the analysis of honey and canned-yellow-peach samples.

Iron oxyhydroxide nanorods with high electrochemical reactivity as a sensitive and rapid determination platform for 4-chlorophenol

Iron oxyhydroxide (FeOOH) nanorods were prepared through solvothermal reaction, and characterized using Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Thereafter, the prepared FeOOH nanorods were used as sensing material to construct a novel detection platform for 4-chlorophenol (4-CP). The electrochemical behaviors of 4-CP were studied, and the oxidation peak currents increased greatly on the surface of FeOOH nanorods. The signal enhancement mechanism was studied for 4-CP, and it was found that the prepared FeOOH nanorods remarkably improved the electron transfer ability and surface adsorption efficiency of 4-CP. The influences of pH value, amount of FeOOH nanorods and accumulation time were examined. As a result, a highly-sensitive electrochemical method was developed for the rapid determination of 4-CP. The linear range was from 10 to 500nM, and the detection limit was 3.2nM. It was used in different water samples, and the results consisted with the values that obtained by high-performance liquid chromatography.