Synchronously enhanced dual oxidation pathways via engineered Co-Nx/Co3O4 for high-efficiency degradation of versatile antibiotics

Developing efficient and eco-friendly technologies for treating the antibiotic wastewaters is crucial. At present, the catalysts with metal-nitrogen (M-N x ) coordination showed excellent Fenton-like performance but were always difficult to realize practical antibiotics degradation because of their complicated preparation methods and inferior stability. In this work, the Co-N x configuration was facilely reconstructed on the surface of Co 3 O 4 (Co-N x /Co 3 O 4 ), which exhibited superior catalytic activity and stability towards various antibiotics. DFT results indicated that stronger ETP oxidation will be triggered by the electron-donating pollutants since more electrons can be easily migrated from these pollutants to the Co-N x /Co 3 O 4 /PMS complex. The Co-N x /Co 3 O 4 /PMS system could maintain superior oxidation capacity, high catalytic stability and anti-interference due to (i) the strong nonradical ETP oxidation with superior degradation selectivity in Co-N x /Co 3 O 4 /PMS system, and (ii) the synchronously enhanced radical oxidation with high populations of non-selective radicals generated via activating PMS by the Co-N x /Co 3 O 4 . As a result, the synergies of synchronously enhanced dual oxidation pathways guaranteed the self-cleaning properties, maintaining 98 % of activity after eight cycles and stability across a wide pH range. Basically, these findings have significant implications for developing technologies for purifying antibiotic wastewater.