Enhanced utilization efficiency of peroxymonosulfate via water vortex-driven piezo-activation for removing organic contaminants from water

The efficient activation and utilization of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) in PMS-based advanced oxidation processes is a high-priority target for the removal of organic contaminants. This work introduces a water vortex-driven piezoelectric effect from few-odd-layered MoS₂ into the PMS activation to remove benzotriazole (BTR) and other organic contaminants from the water. Approximately 91.1% of BTR can be removed by the MoS₂ piezo-activated PMS process with a reaction rate constant of 0.428 min⁻¹, which is 2.09 times faster than the sum of the individual MoS₂, water vortex, and piezocatalysis rates. Meanwhile, the PMS utilization efficiency reached 0.0147 in the water vortex-driven piezo-activation system, which is 3.97 times that of the sum from the vortex/PMS and MoS₂/PMS systems. These results demonstrate that the presence of MoS₂ under a water vortex can trigger a piezoelectric potential and generate abundant free electrons to activate PMS to generate various active species for degradation of organic contaminants.