A facile and simple one-step thermal oxidation method was proposed to prepare core-shell Fe-0@Fe3O4 composites that were acted as an efficient heterogeneous activator of persulfate (PS) for oxidation of dibutyl phthalate (DBP) under neutral conditions. The effects of temperature and reaction time used in the prepared procedure were investigated. The Fe-0@Fe3O4 composites were characterized using Scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction patterns, Raman spectra and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. It was found that the obtained Fe-0@Fe3O4 composites have been prepared successfully. Catalytic testing showed the Fe-0@Fe3O4 composites prepared at 400 degrees C for 40 min achieved the highest activity towards PS, which suggested Fe3O4 played an important role in the catalytic activity. Increasing PS and Fe-0@Fe3O4 dosages could accelerate DBP oxidation, 94.7% degradation of DBP was achieved when PS and Fe-0@Fe3O4 concentrations increased to 1.8 mM and 0.5 g/L, respectively. In addition, Fe-0@Fe3O4 exhibited excellent reusability according to six consecutive reaction cycles with no obvious loss of catalytic activity. More interestingly, the DBP degradation rate increased in the first three cycles. The mechanism for activating of PS by Fe-0@Fe3O4 composites involved in their special inter phase surface which could readily produce Fe-oct(2+) species by an efficient electron transfer process that initiated the reaction to generate sulfate radicals (SO4-.) by a Haber-Weiss mechanism. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.