It is important to understand the O2 generation path in Fe2+/H2O2 system to avoid invalid decomposition of H2O2 and to reduce the cost of pollutants degradation technology using Fe2+/H2O2 system. In this paper
radical scavengers were adopted to investigate the roles of different radicals on the generation of O2 in Fe2+/H2O2 system. The results showed that there were few O2-· in Fe2+/H2O2 system
and O2-· was not the main reagent to generate O2. After ·OH was captured
the generation rate of HO2· was still high
however
there was no O2 generation. This indicated that ·OH and HO2· took part in the reaction to generate O2 directly. ·OH+HO2·-H2O O2 is the main reaction path to generate ;O2. Controling H2O2 decomposition path towards ·OH and restraining the production of HO2· were the effective ways to increase the utilization rate of H2O2.