Simultaneous Removal of Antibiotics and Heavy Metals with Poly (Aspartic Acid)-Based Fenton Micromotors.

Abstract

The discharge of diverse pollutants has led to a complex water environment and posed a huge health threat to human and animals. Self-propelled micromotors have recently attracted considerable attentions for efficient water remediation due to their violent localized mass transfer effect. However, single functionalized component is difficult to tackle with the multiple contaminants and requires to combine different decontamination effects together. Here, we introduced a multifunctional micromotor to implement the adsorption and degradation roles simultaneously by integrating the poly (aspartic acid) (PASP) adsorbent with a MnO 2 -based catalyst. The as-prepared micromotors are well propelled in contaminated waters by MnO 2 catalyzing hydrogen peroxide. In addition, the catalytic ramsdellite MnO2(R-MnO2) inner layer is decorated with Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles to improve their catalytic performance, contributing to an excellent degradation ability with 90% tetracycline (TC) removal in 50 minutes by enhanced Fenton-like reactions. Combining the attractive adsorption capability of poly (aspartic acid) (PASP), the composite micromotors offer an efficient removal of heavy metal ions in short time. Moreover, the designed micromotors are able to simultaneously remove antibiotic and heavy metals in mixed contaminants circumstance just in single treatment. This multifunctional micromotor with distinctive decontamination ability will exhibit a promising prospective in treating multiple pollutants in the future.