Electricity generating & high efficiency advanced oxidation process including peroxymonosulfate activation in photocatalytic fuel cell

A novel system including peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation process in a photocatalytic fuel cell (PFC) was established, promoting the degradation efficiency of berberine and enhancing the simultaneous electricity generation. The cathode is based on carbon-fiber cloth (CC) and loaded CoFe₂O₄ with carbon nano-fibers (CNFs), matching well with Ag NPs/ZnO NRs/NiF photo-anode to drive PFC work. The CNFs/CoFe₂O₄/CC cathode is multifunctional, it can activate PMS for sulfate radical (SO₄^-·) generation, and can simultaneously accept electrons from photo-anode for transform between Co³⁺and Co²⁺. The adding of PMS in PFC system boosts radical formation and cyclic reactions between related species. This PFC-PMS system showed a high antibiotic degradation efficiency and stable electricity generation (93.5% for berberine degradation, 9.18 h⁻¹ for kinetic rate constant, ~0.50 V for cell-voltage at 2000 Ω). In addition, the pollutant removal capacity, influencing factors and the pollutant degradation mechanism in PFC-PMS system were illustrated. The feasible mechanism of berberine degradation was elucidated by the radical trapping and EPR test and these results confirmed that the formation of reactive species, including SO₄^-·, [rad]OH, O₂^-·, ¹O₂ radicals and holes. This study suggests that the established PFC-PMS system is more efficient in wastewater treatment and simultaneous energy recovery.