Carbon nanofibers prepared from ldpe for catalytic wet peroxide oxidation of paracetamol
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abstract
Plastic solid waste (PSW) is a strong concern, as there is still a great fraction being
sent to landfills (around 25% in EU), mainly plastic used for packaging purposes, such
as low- density polyethylene (LDPE). The high content of elemental carbon in plastics
(for example, LDPE consists of 85.6% of carbon) makes them alternative precursors
for synthesis of carbon-based materials, such as carbon nanotubes and nanofibers
(CNTs and CNFs, respectively). On the other hand, catalytic wet peroxide oxidation
(CWPO) is a wastewater treatment process that uses hydrogen peroxide to generate
strong oxidizing species, hydroxyl radicals, through the action of a suitable catalyst,
commonly composed by a metal phase. More recently, metal-free catalysts are the
trend on CWPO, as they avoid a series of issues, such as metal leaching and catalyst
deactivation. Purified CNTs and CNFs fall in the category of metal-free materials.
Thus, in this work, CNFs were synthesized from LDPE, used as carbon source. The
obtained CNFs were purified to remove the metal particles from its structure, and
both pristine and purified catalysts were tested in the CWPO of paracetamol (PCM),
considered as model micropollutant, to compare their activity towards the removal of pollutant, total organic carbon (TOC) and efficiency of hydrogen peroxide
consumption.
This work was financially supported by project “PLASTIC_TO_FUEL&MAT –
Upcycling Waste Plastics into Fuel and Carbon Nanomaterials” (PTDC/EQUEQU/
31439/2017), Base Funding - UIDB/50020/2020 of the Associate Laboratory
LSRE-LCM - funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC), and CIMO
(UIDB/00690/2020) through FEDER under Program PT2020. Fernanda F. Roman
acknowledges the national funding by FCT through the individual research grant
SFRH/BD/143224/2019.
