High-salinity organic wastewater remains difficult to remediate because conventional advanced oxidation processes are often inefficient, and radical pathways are strongly suppressed by matrix effects. Here, we report a micro-nano bubble (MNB)-driven strategy for peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation, where cavitation-induced localized heating and enhanced gas–liquid mass transfer accelerate PMS activation and generate highly oxidative reactive species for degrading tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH), a representative refractory antibiotic, under saline conditions. Compared with the activation of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and peroxydisulfate (PDS), MNBs exhibited a markedly higher capability to activate PMS, achieving 99.3% removal of TCH (10 mg L–1) within 30 min and significantly outperforming the MNBs-only process. Furthermore, the oxygen source used to generate MNBs substantially improved PMS activation, leading to faster degradation kinetics. Mechanically, it was demonstrated that singlet oxygen (1O2) together with hydroxyl radical (•OH) and sulfate radical (SO4•–) was involved in the activation of PMS enhanced by MNBs. This work provides a robust and efficient route for treating high-salinity organic wastewater via coupling MNB technology with PMS-based oxidation.
Yang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.