Can rainwater induce Fenton-driven degradation of herbicides in natural waters?

Qin, J; Li, H; Lin, C; Chen, G

Abstract

Microcosm experiments were conducted to examine Fenton reaction-driven degradation of three common
herbicides exposed to a variety of Fe2+–H2O2 combinations that are likely to be encountered in natural
water environments. The results show that these combinations had significant (P < 0.05) effects on
removing the water-borne herbicides. This discovery sheds some light on the possible role of rainwaterborne
H2O2 in inducing Fenton reaction in many natural waters such as lakes, streams, estuaries and tidal
zones, fishponds and paddy fields that may contain ferrous ion at micromolar levels. The research findings
obtained from this preliminary work provide a rationale for undertaking further study to confirm the
presence of an overlooked naturally-occurring process that may lead to rapid dissipation of many herbicides
and other organic pollutants in open water environments. Our immediate follow-up work is to continue
the laboratory-scale investigations under more complex experimental conditions, including the
uses of various natural water samples for the experiments. This will provide a basis for future field-based
study.

Citation

Qin, J., Li, H., Lin, C., & Chen, G. (2013). Can rainwater induce Fenton-driven degradation of herbicides in natural waters?. Chemosphere, 1048-1052. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2013.03.003

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 4, 2013
• Publication Date: Mar 29, 2013
• Deposit Date: Mar 22, 2016
• Journal: Chemosphere
• Print ISSN: 0045-6535
• Electronic ISSN: 1879-1298
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Issue: 92
• Pages: 1048-1052
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2013.03.003
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2013.03.003
• Related Public URLs: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/chemosphere/