Selection of supported cobalt substrates in the presence of oxone for the oxidation of monuron

The immobilization of cobalt ion on different media to catalyze oxone has been investigated. A probe herbicide, Monuron, was effectively degraded by using Co2+/oxone systems. For Co2+ supported on zeolite, 100% of Monuron could be removed within a 10 min reaction time. However, the recycling of the spent Co-zeolite catalyst using various posttreatments did not give a promising result. This is likely because the zeolite particles in solution have blocked and significantly attenuated the incident UV light from reducing Co3+ to Co2+. On the contrary, the use of cationic resin has minimized these problems. In the process of Co-resin/oxone/UV, faster Monuron decay could be achieved than that in the dark reaction. In the presence of UV, a significant drop of total organic carbon (TOC) was also observed in this approach suggesting an effective and clean process for Monuron mineralization.