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Recently, visible-light-driven photocatalysis is of great interest in the environmental pollutant remediation. In the present study, a novel heterostructured photocatalyst AgI/BiVO was synthesized by an in situ precipitation procedure. The AgI/BiVO heterojunctions exhibited excellent photoactivity for the refractory pollutant (tetracycline (TC), a typical antibiotic) decomposition under visible light illumination. The synthetic sample with 1:4 mass ratio of AgI:BiVO possessed the highest photocatalytic performance in all of the as-prepared catalysts. The TC molecules were substantially eliminated (94.91%) within 60 min, and degradation efficiency was considerably better than those of bare BiVO (62.68%) and AgI (75.43%) under identical conditions. Simultaneously, 90.46% of TOC removal was also achieved within 120 min, suggesting that the mineralization was superior and further confirmed by three-dimensional excitation-emission matrix fluorescence spectroscopy (3D EEMs). The XRD, XPS, DRS, and PL measurements revealed that a small amount of Ag nanoparticles was produced at the early photodegradation process. The structure transformation from AgI/BiVO (double-type) to AgI/Ag/BiVO (sandwich-like) improved the corresponding visible-light absorption performance. The self-assembly Z-scheme heterojunction that consisted of AgI, Ag, and BiVO also efficiently accelerated photoinduced electron-hole pairs' separation and ultimately improved the efficiency of TC degradation. The responsible photocatalytic mechanism was discussed in detail on the basis of the reactive species capturing tests and ESR analysis, and the experimental results had been validated that superoxide radicals and holes played a vital role during the photocatalytic process. Furthermore, TC degradation efficiency was not of significant loss after four consecutive cycles, suggesting the excellent photostability of AgI/BiVO nanocomposite. These features demonstrate that the AgI/BiVO heterojunction has great application potential for refractory pollutants' removal from wastewater.

Alkaline condition (especially pH 10) has been demonstrated to be a promising method for short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) production from waste activated sludge anaerobic fermentation, because it can effectively inhibit the activities of methanogens. However, due to the limit of sludge solubilization rate, long fermentation time is required but SCFA yield is still limited. This paper reports a new pretreatment method for alkaline fermentation, i.e., using free nitrous acid (FNA) to pretreat sludge for 2 d, by which the fermentation time is remarkably shortened and meanwhile the SCFA production is significantly enhanced. Experimental results showed the highest SCFA production of 370.1 mg COD/g VSS (volatile suspended solids) was achieved at 1.54 mg FNA/L pretreatment integration with 2 d of pH 10 fermentation, which was 4.7- and 1.5-fold of that in the blank (uncontrolled) and sole pH 10 systems, respectively. The total time of this integration system was only 4 d, whereas the corresponding time was 15 d in the blank and 8 d in the sole pH 10 systems. The mechanism study showed that compared with pH 10, FNA pretreatment accelerated disruption of both extracellular polymeric substances and cell envelope. After FNA pretreatment, pH 10 treatment (1 d) caused 38.0% higher substrate solubilization than the sole FNA, which indicated that FNA integration with pH 10 could cause positive synergy on sludge solubilization. It was also observed that this integration method benefited hydrolysis and acidification processes. Therefore, more SCFA was produced, but less fermentation time was required in the integrated system.

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