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Organic carbon transfer process in advanced oxidation systems for water clean-up

Nature Water volume 3, pages 334–344 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Although Fenton and Fenton-like technologies have long been of great interest for application to environmental remediation, the transformation and final form of pollutants during the reaction have rarely been studied in depth. Here we report a pollutant transformation process, termed organic carbon transfer process (OCTP), in a Fenton-like reaction. Compared with the Fenton reaction previously reported for treating organic wastewater, the OCTP is very different and widely observed in reaction systems. In the OCTP, as oxidation proceeds and pollutant derivatives interact, the pollutants’ polarity changes and the pollutants predominantly accumulate on the catalyst surface. The OCTP occurs during the degradation of various wastewater types and accounts for up to 90.1% of the total substances accumulated on catalyst surfaces, even during industrial wastewater treatment. The in-depth study of OCTP has to some extent revealed the main reasons for the deactivation of heterogeneous catalysts during the reaction process and provided new research directions for the future study of heterogeneous catalytic systems.

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Fig. 1: Preparation and characterization of catalyst.
Fig. 2: Catalytic activity testing of Fe–N–C.
Fig. 3: Detection and quantification of surface substances on catalysts.
Fig. 4: Exploration of OCTP mechanism.
Fig. 5: OCTP optimized water treatment technology.

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Data availability

The data that support the conclusions of this study are available within the manuscript and Supplementary information.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (numbers 22325602 and 22176060) and Program of Shanghai Academic/Technology Research Leader (23XD1421000) and a project supported by Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project (grant number 2018SHZDZX03) and the Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (B16017), as well as the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (20DZ2250400). Thanks to Q. Sui for helping us with PFCs detection. We thank the Research Center of Analysis and Test of East China University of Science and Technology for the help on the characterization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Joint International Research Laboratory of Precision Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Feringa Nobel Prize Scientist Joint Research Center, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China

    Zhuan Chen, Jiayi Wang, Bo Yang, Jun Li, Zhiyan Liang, Xinyue Liu, Yan Bao & Mingyang Xing

  2. Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Institute of Fine Chemicals, School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China

    Jiazhen Cao & Mingyang Xing

  3. Shanghai Engineering Research Center for Multimedia Environmental Catalysis and Resource Utilization, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China

    Mingyang Xing

Authors
  1. Zhuan Chen
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Contributions

M.X. proposed the experimental concepts and supervised the project. M.X. and Z.C. designed the experiments and prepared the paper. Z.C., J.W., B.Y., J.L., Z.L., X.L. and Y.B. carried out the experiments and conducted the materials characterization. M.X., Z.C. and J.C. revised the paper. All authors have reviewed and agreed to submit the manuscript version and agree to be listed as co-authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mingyang Xing.

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Nature Water thanks Lizhi Zhang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Chen, Z., Wang, J., Yang, B. et al. Organic carbon transfer process in advanced oxidation systems for water clean-up. Nat Water 3, 334–344 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-025-00399-7

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