Strategies for controlling or increasing the yield of radical reactions generated by ultrasonic cavitation in aqueous media have been the object of research for many years. Past studies have focused on the role of organic solvents in increasing Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) formation or have investigated the effect of ultrasound on accelerating the OH radicals generation from Fenton reactive. More recently, piezoelectric micro-nanoparticles have shown a synergistic effect in activating specific reactions and increasing radicals production from ultrasound. Here we report the generation of ROS together with H2 evolution or increase of oxidizing species during ultrasonic treatments of homogeneous concentrated aqueous solutions of simple salts as acidic phosphates, potassium sodium tartrate and alkaline nitrates. An increase in organic dye degradation efficiency, and the increase of reducing or oxidizing species compared with pure water has been found. The activation mechanism revealed a new, unexpected, approach to enhance the efficiency of sono-catalyzed reactions in aqueous media for environmental or energy applications.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author (a.troia@inrim.it) upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Prof. R. Spagnolo for financial support of these experimental investigations and Dott. M. Pelassa for his scientific and technical contribution.
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A.T. conceived the study, performed the experiments and formulated hypothesis and conclusion of the work. V.C. and V.V. supported the experiments (EPR) and theoretical evaluation. S.H. and M.G support the experiments (GC) and statistical analysis V.M. and F.P. contributed to theoretical model of radical reactions and for the analysis of the measurements. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.
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Troia, A., Gallone, M., Vighetto, V. et al. Modulation of sonochemical reactions by cavitation driven thermal degradation of aqueous salts solutions. Commun Chem (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-026-01961-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-026-01961-4
