Citation: Xin Li, Zhijie Liu, Hezhi Guo, Zekai Zhang, Polun Pang, Yuting Gao, Xiangdong Tan. Underwater air bubble plasma-activated peroxymonosulfate for sustainable long-term self-purification of wastewater[J]. Chinese Chemical Letters, ;2026, 37(4): 111668. doi: 10.1016/j.cclet.2025.111668 shu

Underwater air bubble plasma-activated peroxymonosulfate for sustainable long-term self-purification of wastewater

Xin Li ^a ,
Zhijie Liu ^{a, *,} ,
Hezhi Guo ^a ,
Zekai Zhang ^a ,
Polun Pang ^a ,
Yuting Gao ^a ,
Xiangdong Tan ^b

a.
State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Centre for Plasma Biomedicine, School of Electrical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China
b.
SINOPEC (Dalian) Research Institute of Petroleum and Petrochemicals Co., Ltd., National Engineering Research Center of Industrial Wastewater Detoxication and Resource Recovery, Dalian 116045, China

liuzhijie2010@163.com

Received Date: 11 April 2025
Revised Date: 27 June 2025
Accepted Date: 31 July 2025
Available Online: 5 August 2025

Figures(5)

With the continuous detection of new pollutants in the water environment, their potential harm cannot be ignored. In order to explore an effective method to remove contaminants from wastewater, this paper presents an underwater bubble plasma (UBP) activated peroxymonosulfate (PMS) strategy for rapidly degrading the typical emerging contaminant tetracycline hydrochloride (TC) in water. The results indicate that, compared with UBP alone (41.1%), the UBP-PMS system (98.6%) exhibits significantly enhanced degradation ability, achieving a 57.5% increase in TC degradation rate under identical conditions while enabling long-term self-purification of wastewater without energy input within this system. In addition, we studied the effects of initial TC concentration, the type of working gas, the initial pH value of the solution, and the water matrix on the degradation performance of the UBP-PMS system. The anti-interference performance of the UBP-PMS system is proven to be strong, as six inorganic anions (HCO₃⁻, CO₃²⁻, NO₃⁻, HPO₄²⁻, SO₄²⁻ and Cl⁻) are added respectively to simulate the actual water environment. The contribution of different reactive species to the degradation process was evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively by electron spin resonance (ESR) and scavenger experiments, of which the largest contribution was ^•OH, followed by ¹O₂, ONOOH/O₂^•-, SO₄^•‒ and hydrated electrons. The potential degradation pathways of TC were analyzed, and the toxicity of the degradation intermediates was evaluated by quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) analysis, revealing a gradual reduction in TC toxicity under the co-treatment of UBP-PMS. This study provides a novel activation strategy involving UBP-PMS and provides valuable insights into the degradation properties and mechanisms of emerging pollutants in actual water bodies.
- Underwater bubble plasma activation,
- Peroxymonosulfate,
- Self-purification ability,
- Tetracycline hydrochloride,
- Wastewater treatment
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