Molybdenum disulfide as excellent Co-catalyst boosting catalytic degradation of sulfamethoxazole by nZVI/PDS process

•MoS2 significantly facilitated the conversion of Fe3+ to Fe2+ and catalytic performance in nZVI/PDS process.•SO4·- and ·OH were identified as the primary reactive oxygen species in MoS2/nZVI/PDS process.•Key parameters were optimized and the enhanced mechanism in MoS2 co-catalytic nZVI /PDS system was proposed.•The possible degradation pathways of SMX were illustrated by UPLC-QTOF-MS.