Developing superior catalysts engineered by multichannel healing strategy for advanced oxidation

Abstract

Catalyst deactivation derived from slow conversion of Fe(III)/Fe(II) is the critical problem restricting catalytic efficiency of advanced oxidation. Herein, a novel multichannel healing strategy is proposed for fast healing structural damage by designing rationally smart platform (TiO2-CDs-FeOOH hollow sandwich hybrid). This ingenious system shows remarkable catalytic activity (0.77 min−1) and stability towards the removal of organic contaminants. Systematic studies confirm that the excellent catalytic activity is attributed to multiple electron transfer (MET) behavior at interface between photocatalytic substrate and FeOOH, leading to highly efficient interfacial charge separation and then fast recovery of Fe(II) on FeOOH surface during H2O2 activation process. Notably, multichannel healing procedure and MET kinetic information are unveiled by UV–vis/scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) through an in situ probe scanning technique. A higher ET rate constant keff (0.92 × 10-2 cm s-1) was revealed over TiO2-CDs-FeOOH, two times that of TiO2-FeOOH, further confirming that multi-channel electron transfer could achieve fast Fe(III)/Fe(II) conversion. This work offers a new insight to design highly efficient catalysts for the practical applications of sustainable environmental remediation and energy conversion.