Recently, the research team of Tongji University proposed a solution to purify organic pollutants in water, which improves the degradation efficiency of pollutants through selective regulation of photocatalytic generation of free radicals.

Photocatalytic molecular oxygen activation technology can generate electrons and holes under the action of sunlight, and activate oxygen into active oxygen species with high pollutant oxidation ability, thereby solving the problem of purifying organic pollutants such as antibiotics in water. This technology can significantly improve the free radical yield during photocatalytic molecular oxygen activation, thereby improving the purification efficiency of organic pollutants in water bodies.

The research team used carbon-nitrogen materials as research templates and prepared a new material with high electron-hole separation ability by simultaneously introducing cyano and sodium into the material. The introduction of cyano groups attracts photo-generated holes, thereby reducing the bonds between photo-generated electron-hole pairs. Under the synergistic effect of cyano and sodium, electrons can quickly migrate to the vicinity of the reaction site. The addition of sodium allows carbon-nitrogen materials to trap these migrating electrons for subsequent oxygen activation reactions, thereby inhibiting the recombination process of electrons and holes. The material shows a free radical selectivity of 97.6%, and has good removal ability for antibiotics, plasticizers, pesticides and other pollutants. Source: China Chemical News