Improvement of selective catalytic oxidation capacity of phthalates from surface molecular-imprinted catalysis materials: Design, mechanism, and application

Phthalates (PAEs) are widely distributed environmental pollutants. As an effective method, advanced oxidation usually has low efficiency and excessive cost. In this study, surface molecular imprinting was used to enhance the targeted catalytic degradation ability of PAEs in the advanced oxidation process. Molecular simulation results show that more stable hydrogen bonds can be formed between carboxyl components and phthalates. With acrylic acid as a functional monomer, the adsorption capacity and catalytic capacity for diethyl phthalate on molecular imprinting material (C-MIL-100-MIP) were improved significantly reached to 19.1 mg g-1 and 12.05 mg g-1. Although amino groups can also provide hydrogen bonds, the catalyst synthesized using amino as functional monomer is not well. This result is consistent with the calculation result. The actual wastewater treatment results showed that the removal capacity of DMP and DEP on C-MIL-100-MIP was 44.4% and 64.7% higher than that of MIL-100. Moreover, in the PS catalysis process, C-MIL-100-MIP could adsorb PS and generate more free radicals within 30 min than that of carbonized MIL-100 and MIL-100. This feature can significantly improve the efficiency of PS usage. The results show that molecular computation can provide an efficient method for the design of catalytic materials with specific recognition ability and using molecular imprint method to improve the catalysis efficiency has a certain application prospect in the industrial wastewater treatment.

Automated summary

Phthalates are widespread environmental pollutants, and advanced oxidation as an effective method for their degradation usually faces challenges in efficiency and cost. Through surface molecular imprinting, this study improved the targeted catalytic degradation ability of PAEs, showing promising application prospects in industrial wastewater treatment.