Simultaneous nanocatalytic surface activation of pollutants and oxidants for highly efficient water decontamination

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 3005 - 13
• Main Authors: Zhang, Ying-Jie, Huang, Gui-Xiang, Winter, Lea R., Chen, Jie-Jie, Tian, Lili, Mei, Shu-Chuan, Zhang, Ze, Chen, Fei, Guo, Zhi-Yan, Ji, Rong, You, Ye-Zi, Li, Wen-Wei, Liu, Xian-Wei, Yu, Han-Qing, Elimelech, Menachem
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 30.05.2022; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/166/898; 639/638/77/887; 704/172/169/896; Adsorption; Catalysts; Decontamination; Energy; Humanities and Social Sciences; Micropollutants; Mineralization; multidisciplinary; Nanocatalysis; Nanotechnology; Oxidants; Oxidation; Oxidizing agents; Pollutant removal; Pollutants; Potential energy; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Surface activation; Surface chemistry; Water purification
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30560-9

Removal of organic micropollutants from water through advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) is hampered by the excessive input of energy and/or chemicals as well as the large amounts of residuals resulting from incomplete mineralization. Herein, we report a new water purification paradigm, the direct oxidative transfer process (DOTP), which enables complete, highly efficient decontamination at very low dosage of oxidants. DOTP differs fundamentally from AOPs and adsorption in its pollutant removal behavior and mechanisms. In DOTP, the nanocatalyst can interact with persulfate to activate the pollutants by lowering their reductive potential energy, which triggers a non-decomposing oxidative transfer of pollutants from the bulk solution to the nanocatalyst surface. By leveraging the activation, stabilization, and accumulation functions of the heterogeneous catalyst, the DOTP can occur spontaneously on the nanocatalyst surface to enable complete removal of pollutants. The process is found to occur for diverse pollutants, oxidants, and nanocatalysts, including various low-cost catalysts. Significantly, DOTP requires no external energy input, has low oxidant consumption, produces no residual byproducts, and performs robustly in real environmental matrices. These favorable features render DOTP an extremely promising nanotechnology platform for water purification. Removal of organic micropollutants from water through advanced oxidation processes is hampered by the excessive input of energy and/or chemicals as well as the large amounts of residuals resulting from incomplete mineralization. Here the authors present a new alternative water purification technology to adsorption and advanced oxidation.