Eliminating imidacloprid and its toxicity by permanganate via highly selective partial oxidation

Imidacloprid is a widely used neonicotinoid insecticide worldwide, and has attracted great concerns due to its potential threat to human and environment. Much effort was thus spent on developing the effective way for removing imidacloprid from water, but might also produce various degradation products with unknown risks. The hypothesis was then proposed that permanganate oxidation was probably the appropriate tool for eliminating imidacloprid and its toxicity through selective oxidation of specific groups. To that end, we studied the kinetics of permanganate/imidacloprid reaction by considering the effects of pH (5.0-9.0), temperature (15-35 °C), ionization strength (0.05-0.20 M), typical anions (Cl^-, Br^-, I^-) and humic acid. Based on the identified products from mass spectrometer, the main reaction pathway was found to be the hydroxylation of C-H bond at imidazole ring, leading to the decreased toxicity evaluated by ECOSAR program. Our results demonstrate that permanganate oxidation should be a very promising technique for controlling imidacloprid contamination by effective detoxification through highly selective partial oxidation. Moreover, this study has also paved the way toward applying permanganate oxidation for in situ chemical remediation of imidacloprid, though the corresponding standards need to be established in advance.