Clean water availability is becoming a matter of global concern in the last decades. The responsible entities for
wastewater treatment do not have the proper facilities to deal with a wide range of pollutants. Special attention
should be given to emerging contaminants, whose presence in water bodies may cause adverse effects on the
aquatic ecosystem and human health. Most studies in the literature do not consider the development of their
solution in real matrices, which can hinder the applicability of the explored alternative in the real scenario.
Therefore, in this work, we demonstrate the applicability of hybrid magnetic nanoparticles for removing paracetamol
(PCM) from simulated and real matrices by catalytic wet peroxide oxidation (CWPO). To achieve carbon
coating, the nanoparticles were prepared via the traditional route (resorcinol/formaldehyde, CoFe@CRF). A new
methodology was also considered for synthesizing thin-layered carbon-coated magnetic nanoparticles (phloroglucinol/
glyoxalic acid, CoFe@CPG). TEM images revealed a multi-core shell structure formation, with an
average carbon layer size of 7.8 ± 0.5 and 3.2 ± 0.3 nm for resorcinol/formaldehyde and phloroglucinol/
glyoxalic acid methodology, respectively. Screening the materials’ activity for PCM oxidation by CWPO revealed
that the nanoparticle prepared by phloroglucinol/glyoxalic acid methodology has higher performance for the
degradation of PCM, achieving 63.5% mineralization after 24 h of reaction, with similar results for more complex
matrices. Iron leaching measured at the end of all reactions has proven that the carbon layer protects the core
against leaching.
