Papers selected by: Ruiyang Xiao, Stanisław Wacławek, Dionysios D. Dionysiou
Ruiyang Xiao
Institute of Environmental Engineering, School of Metallurgy and Environment, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China
Stanisław Wacławek
Institute for Nanomaterials, Advanced Technologies and Innovation, Technical University of Liberec, Studentská 1402/2, 461 17 Liberec, Czech Republic
Dionysios D. Dionysiou
Environmental Engineering and Science Program, Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, 705 Engineering Research Center, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0012, USA
Sulfate radical-based advanced oxidation process (SR-AOP) is considered as a promising technology for water and soil remediation, where sulfate radicals are primarily generated in-situ from various salts of peroxydisulfate (PS) and peroxymonosulfate (PMS). SR-AOPs have become extremely popular in the environmental sciences and engineering in recent years due to interest on some of their properties: (1) Facile transportation of PMS/PS salts to the contaminated field, in contrary to, e.g., hydrogen peroxide solution and ozone gas; (2) relatively high stability in waters in comparison to many other oxidants applied in-situ; (3) convenient activation means for radical generation; and (4) relatively high selectivity in the presence of water matrices in comparison to other radicals.
In spite of copious literature on SR-AOPs, strategies that transfer bench‒scale research to full-scale applications are currently limited in both water and soil treatment sectors. By seeing these challenges, we decide to create a virtual special issue of Chemical Engineering Journal (CEJ), in which new advances in the field of SR-AOP application for water and soil treatment will be presented. Editors encourage future submission to CEJ of manuscripts focusing on the improvement of scalability of the SR-AOP in-situ as well as presenting exploitation of exceptional properties of sulfate radicals for the treatment of synthetic organic compounds (SOCs). For example, research papers or reviews focusing on the impact of water matrix on SR-AOPs, with additional evaluation of economic aspects of such treatments (e.g., compared to commonly-used AOPs). This virtual special issue collects also careful investigations of the byproducts formed and subsequent change of toxicity in the SR-AOP systems. This is especially desired in situations where SOCs are intended to be oxidized by SR-AOP and where in-depth knowledge of the complicated chemical reactions (often backed up with the computational approaches) is necessary. Therefore, we especially encourage multidisciplinary teams with various backgrounds, such as environmental engineering and chemistry, organic chemistry, computational chemistry etc., to participate in collaboration in research and the development and address and scrutinize aspects of scalability, implementation, practicality, and meaningful application of SR-AOPs. Submission of such papers are encouraged. In addition of papers dealing with mechanistic aspects and engineering designs, are also encouraged.