Upcycling Textile White Mud to Fabricate MIL-125-Derived Amorphous TiO<sub>2</sub>@C: Effective Electrocatalyst for Cathodic Reduction of Antibiotics

oleh: Jinmei Zhu, Xiaofei Wen, Yuanhui Feng, Shuaibing Ren, Zimo Lou, Jiansheng Li

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2023-11-01

Deskripsi

Cathodic reduction is a green and promising remediation strategy for reducing the antibacterial activity of antibiotic contaminants and increasing their biodegradability. However, the lack of cost-effective electrocatalysts has restricted its application. In this study, we upcycled textile white mud by separating 1,4-dicarboxybenzene (BDC) and fabricating MIL-125(Ti)-derived amorphous TiO<sub>2</sub>@C (TiO<sub>2</sub>@C-W) as a functional electrocatalyst. The separated BDC from white mud shows lower crystallinity than BDC chemicals, but the resulting TiO<sub>2</sub>@C-W features a much higher degree of oxygen vacancies and a 25-fold higher specific surface area than that of TiO<sub>2</sub>@C derived from BDC chemicals. With florfenicol (FLO) as a probe, TiO<sub>2</sub>@C-W exhibits similar cathodic reductive activity (0.017 min<sup>−1</sup>) as commercial Pd(3 wt.%)/C (0.018 min<sup>−1</sup>) does, which was 1.4 and 3.7 times higher than that of oxygen vacancy-engineered TiO<sub>2</sub> and TiO<sub>2</sub>@C, respectively. The as-fabricated TiO<sub>2</sub>@C-W could not easily remove FLO via the oxygen reduction reaction-based pathway with the applied bias for cathodic reduction. Though the activity of TiO<sub>2</sub>@C-W undergoes a slight decline with continuous running, more than 80% of 20 mg L<sup>−1</sup> FLO can still be reduced in the eighth run. Water chemistry studies suggest that a lower initial solution pH boosts the cathodic reduction process, while common co-existing anions such as Cl<sup>−</sup>, NO<sub>3</sub><sup>−</sup>, HCO<sub>3</sub><sup>−</sup>, and SO<sub>3</sub><sup>2−</sup> show a limited negative impact. Finally, TiO<sub>2</sub>@C-W shows reductive activity against several representative antibiotics, including nitrofurazone, metronidazole, and levofloxacin, clarifying its potential scope of application for antibiotics (e.g., molecules with structures like furan rings, nitro groups, and halogens). This study couples the upcycling of textile white mud with the remediation of antibiotics by developing functional electrocatalysts, and offers new insights for converting wastes from the printing and dyeing industry into value-added products.