Issue 4, 2024

Understanding the active sites and associated reaction pathways of metal-free carbocatalysts in persulfate activation and pollutant degradation

Abstract

Environmental remediation based on persulfate (i.e., peroxomonosulfate (PMS) and peroxydisulfate (PDS))-activation-enabled radical and non-radical oxidation has captured growing interest due to the strong oxidation power, long life of reactive oxygen species, and wide pH adaptability. While metal-based catalysts suffer from environmental problems (e.g., metal ion leaching), metal-free carbocatalysts become the focus of current activities for establishing environmentally benign and efficient carbocatalyst-driven PMS/PDS-based advanced oxidation processes (AOPs). However, the complex structure and nonstoichiometry of carbocatalysts cause the decoding of their active sites and associated pathways in activating persulfates and degrading pollutants to be challenging. Moreover, the ambiguous active sites and structure–activity–performance relationships, as well as the inability to differentiate the oxidation capabilities based on different reaction pathways, present an enormous obstacle to designing and fabricating highly active and durable carbocatalysts for PMS/PDS-based AOPs. Hereby, this paper makes an effort to unravel the catalytic sites of carbocatalysts and their associated pathways in PMS/PDS-based AOPs. Apart from various non-doped active sites, we summarize the diverse active sites induced by single-doping, dual-doping, and tri-doping carbon substrates with different kinds of heteroatoms. Meanwhile, the relationships between these active sites and associated pathways in PMS/PDS-based AOPs are simultaneously analyzed before presenting the challenges and future perspectives.

Graphical abstract: Understanding the active sites and associated reaction pathways of metal-free carbocatalysts in persulfate activation and pollutant degradation

Article information

Article type
Critical Review
Submitted
29 дек 2023
Accepted
26 фев 2024
First published
26 фев 2024

Environ. Sci.: Nano, 2024,11, 1368-1393

Understanding the active sites and associated reaction pathways of metal-free carbocatalysts in persulfate activation and pollutant degradation

H. Hu, D. Chen, Y. Liang, W. Wang, Y. Lin, X. Xu, X. Wang, K. Wang, Y. Zhang and J. Z. Ou, Environ. Sci.: Nano, 2024, 11, 1368 DOI: 10.1039/D3EN00988B

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements