To obtain a better understanding of relationship between structure and degradation performance of azo dye,the modified polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fiber Fe complex was used as the heterogeneous Fenton catalyst for the oxidative degradation of 28 typical water-soluble anionic azo dyes.The quantitative relationship between structure and decoloration percentage or TOC removal of the dyes was investigated by using multivariate linear regression analysis.The QSPR (quantitative structure property relationship) models were developed and then applied for predicting the degradation performance of similar azo dyes.The results indicated that the azo dyes with different structures were effectively degraded and mineralized in the presence of modified PAN fiber Fe complex.Moreover,there is a good linear relationship between molecular descriptors including MW/S(molecular weight divided by the number of sulphonate groups),the number of azo linkage,the number of aromatic rings or inorganic/organic value and decoloration percentage or TOC removal of the dyes.MW/Sand the number of azo linkage served as the most significant negative effecting factor for decoloration percentage.While the number of azo linkage or the number of aromatic ring acted as the most significant negative or positive effecting factor,respectively.The QSPR models developed are stable enough to predict the degradation performance because the relative error and correlation coefficients between the predicted and the observed decoloration percentage or TOC removal are accepted.
