Abstract
Atomic site–specific reactivity induced by the lattice distortion has garnered increasing research interest for advancing the heterogeneous catalytic conversions, owing to strain–field–tunable electronic structure of the distorted active sites. Here, we prepare the catalysts with reactive center of ferromagnetically nanoparticulate cobalt that is fully exposed by the Co(111) lattice plane with increasing strain. Such sites can boost peracetic acid (PAA) utilization under a mild magnetic field (MF, maximum 500 mT) to produce a bulk of reactive species with high ratio 93.1% R–O• for sulfamethoxazole abatement and thus attain high–effective greener decontamination for water remediations. Spin‒polarized density functional theory and experimental results collectively confirm strain–induced spin modulation at Co(111) step A sites as a critical reactivity determinant. This work integrates MF into PAA utilization and thus provides a perspective on improving the atomic economies of developing ferromagnetic nanoparticulated metal sites into water remediation in low-energy utilization route.
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Acknowledgements
The authors sincerely thank the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 22306201 to Y.Q.Z. and 22306202 to S.J.Z.), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20231026 to Y.Q.Z.), the Young Scientific and Technological Talents Support Project of Jiangsu Association for Science and Technology (No. JSTJ-2024-414) to S.J.Z. We sincerely thank the BL14W1 beamline of Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) for characterizations of catalysts. We sincerely thank Prof. Kai Liu’s research group at Westlake University for their assistance in providing control samples to address the reviewer’s comment.
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S.J.Z. and Y.Q.Z. designed the experiment. Y.Q.Z. and X.N.Z. conducted the experiment and analyzed the results. S.H.Q. and H.L. contributed to conducting TEM, in-situ Raman characterization. S.H.Q. and Y.M.M. carried out the DFT calculation. Y.D., W.M., and M.H.Z. provided constructive suggestions for the project. S.J.Z. proposed and supervised the project. Y.Q.Z. wrote and revised the paper.
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Zhang, Y., Zhang, X., Qin, S. et al. Strain‒induced spin regulation of stepped Co(111) for boosting peracetic acid magnetocatalysis. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71158-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71158-9
