Degradation of triclocarban in water by dielectric barrier discharge plasma combined with TiO2/activated carbon fibers: Effect of operating parameters and byproducts identification

The removal of triclocarban (TCC) in aqueous solution by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma combined with TiO2 coated activated carbon fibers (TiO2/ACFs) catalysts was investigated at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. The effects of output power, initial concentration, radius of TiO2/ACFs catalysts and recyclability of catalysts on the removal rate of triclocarban were explored. The results showed that the addition of TiO2/ACFs catalysts with radius of 3 cm into DBD plasma reactor could improve mineralization efficiency of TCC by 12% as compared with sole DBD system and the acute toxicity of TCC solution decreased from 64% to 32% after 30 min degradation in DBD/TiO2/ACFs system. The mechanism experiments indicated that oxygen and OH radical played an important role during the degradation process. Moreover, a possible reaction pathway was proposed based on stable products identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometer. The results confirmed that DBD/TiO2/ACFs might be a promising method for effectively removing TCC from water.