Piezo-activation of peroxymonosulfate for benzothiazole removal in water

Abstract Piezoelectricity, as a kind of physical phenomenon, is a coupling between a material’s mechanical and electrical behavior. Herein, the local accumulated charges on the surface of piezoelectric material were first used to break O-O bond of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) to induce its activation for the benzothiazole (BTH) removal. Taking BaTiO3 as a model piezocatalyst, up to 97% of BTH was degraded within 30 min in BaTiO3/PMS/force system, which was respective 40%, 79%, 83% higher than that in BaTiO3/force piezocatalysis, force/PMS oxidation, and BaTiO3/PMS adsorption. A significant synergistic effect was observed since the reaction rate constant of BaTiO3/PMS/force was 3 times higher than the sum of those later three processes. The possible activated mechanism was proposed based on reactive species analysis, DFT calculation and LCMS determination. The stability of the piezocatalyst and the treatment performance for real wastewater were studied to investigate the potential in practical applicability. All the results demonstrated that the BaTiO3 piezoelectricity can efficiently activate PMS to enhance BTH removal, which is a promising strategy for PMS activation, as well as a valuable insight for the piezoelectrical application in wastewater remediation.