Highly efficient degradation of 2,2′,4,4′-tetrabromodiphenyl ether through combining surfactant-assisted Zn0 reduction with subsequent Fenton oxidation

2,2′,4,4′-tetrabromodiphenyl ether (BDE47) was difficult to be rapidly degraded by common reductive debromination or oxidative decomposition. In this study, the debromination via surfactant-assisted zero valent zinc (Zn 0 ) reduction and subsequent Fenton oxidation was combined to completely degrade BDE47. Firstly, Zn 0 integrated with surfactants including cetyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTAC), polyethylene glycol dodecyl ether (Brij35), or 1-dodecanesulfonic acid sodium salt (SDS) were evaluated for their reactivity to debrominate BDE47. CTAC-assisted Zn 0 system presented the highest removal efficiency of 98.6% for BDE47 ( C 0  = 5 mg/L) under the optimized conditions including 0.3 g/L of Zn 0 particles and 0.05 g/L of CTAC at 25 °C and pH 4.0 during 1-h reaction. Subsequently, the debromination products as low-brominated BDEs were attacked by hydroxyl radicals (•OH) from Fenton reagent, which were decomposed into short-chain carboxylic acids and even mineralized within 2-h oxidation. In addition, HPLC, GC–MS, LC–MS/MS, and IC were employed to detect intermediates during this reaction/oxidation process and the pathways of debromination and oxidation were proposed according to carbon and bromine balance. The above combination achieved the complete degradation of BDE47 via a relative low-cost method to rapidly remove PBDEs, which provide a new approach for the effective treatment of halogenated organic pollutants.