Visible light-assisted peroxydisulfate activation via hollow copper tungstate spheres for removal of antibiotic sulfamethoxazole

The contamination of antibiotics in aqueous environment causes increasing concerns recently.Lightassisted activation of peroxydisulfate(PDS)has been demonstrated as an efficient technology for re moval of contamination in water.Herein,a hollow sphere of CuWO_(4)(h-CuWO_(4))was employed as a visible lightactivated photocatalyst for the activation of PDS,and following with high removal efficiency(98%)of antibiotic sulfamethoxazole(SMX).Under visible light irradiation,the degradation rate on hollow structures system is nearly 2 times higher than the traditional solid CuWO_(4) spheres.Furthermore,the underlying mechanism and detailed pathway of SMX degradation were proposed based on density functional theory(DFT)calculations and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry(LC-MS).This work provides a new feasible way for advanced oxidation processes to remove antibiotics SMX in heterogeneous system,and open up new application possibilities of CuWO_(4)-based materials.