Unraveling the role of oxygen in aeration-driven piezoelectric PMS activation process using oxygen vacancy engineered BTO

The discharge of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs)-containing wastewater has caused severe water pollution problems. Herein, an aeration-driven piezoelectric peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation process using oxygen-vacancy engineered BaTiO 3 (BTO-Ov) is applied for the PPCPs removal from water. About 95 % of amoxicillin (AM) can be removed within 30 min in the presence of aeration and PMS. Compared to other PMS based advanced oxidation processes, the aeration-driven piezoelectric PMS activation process using BTO-Ov exhibits dual superiority in catalytic performance and energy saving capability. During the process, the sufficient dissolved oxygen (DO) originated from the aeration can not only work as the precursor for the reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation, but also the enhancer for the PMS activation. The activation energy of PMS is 26.9 kJ/mol in the proposed system, much lower than most previously reported studies. Moreover, the involvement of ROS in the AM degradation is able to be also regulated by the DO content in solution, achieving better mineralization efficiency of AM. The system also demonstrates good reusability and application potential on the removal of other PPCPs from water. This work offers an excellent method for the wastewater treatment and in-depth mechanism understanding on the aeration-driven piezoelectric PMS activation process.