Abstract
<p style="text-align:justify; margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The development of a single-component catalyst for advanced oxidation process (AOP) with high degradation efficiency in both dark and under sunlight irradiation could potentially alleviate many challenges towards a practical application of AOP in treating real wastewater streams. Our group is developing C, N-doped iron borate (FeBO<sub>3</sub>), and cobalt borate (Co<sub>2</sub>B<sub>2</sub>O<sub>5</sub>) as Fenton-like and PMS catalysts, respectively in the degradation of various organic pollutants ranging from azo dyes, antibiotics, and volatile organic compounds. Herein, we expanded the application of Co<sub>2</sub>B<sub>2</sub>O<sub>5</sub> in the degradation of 4-nitrophenol and showed their high tolerance to natural organic matter (NOM) in the activation of PMS.(Fig. a,b) The synthesis of C, N-doped iron borate was further optimized through (i) conventional solid-state thermal annealing and (ii) solution-phase synthesis. In the solid-state thermal annealing reaction, different iron salt was investigated in yielding a pure and highly active C, N-doped FeBO<sub>3</sub>. The C, N-doped FeBO<sub>3</sub> prepared using FeSO<sub>4</sub> as the Fe source exhibited the highest degradation activity of methylene blue with a first-order reaction rate of 0.147 min<sup>-1</sup>. Using the same precursor mixture, we have also demonstrated a facile solution phase synthesis of the C, N-doped iron borate via hydrothermal reaction at 200 °C for 12 hours in yielding C, N-doped FeBO<sub>3</sub> with high Fenton-like activity. (Fig c, d) </span></span></span></span></span></p>