“…As presented and discussed in several papers [26][27][28][29], degradation of azo dyes can be described by the following stages ( Fig. 2): (i) azo bond breakdown that includes lose of saturated character of azo bond and transformation to hydroxyl structure, (ii) tearing the dye molecule (cleavage of -N-N-bond and nitro group formation) when differently substituted aromatic compounds (benzene, naphthalene, and triazine) are produced, (iii) degradation of aromatic rings; naphthalene to benzene, benzene to carboxylic acids, alcohols and aldehydes, with an emphasis on oxalic acid; and oxidation of substituted triazines to cyanuric acid, and finally, (iv) oxidation of oxalic acid to CO 2 by hydroxyl and sulfate radical.…”