Defective nitrogen doped carbon material derived from nano-ZIF-8 for enhanced in-situ HO generation and tetracycline hydrochloride degradation in electro-Fenton system.

Tetracycline hydrochloride (TC) accumulates in large quantities in the water environment, causing a serious threat to human health and ecological environment safety. This research focused on developing cost-effective catalysts with high 2e selectivity for electro-Fenton (EF) technology, a green pollution treatment method. Defective nitrogen-doped porous carbon (d-NPC) was prepared using the metal-organic framework as the precursor to achieve in-situ HO production and self-decomposition into high activity ·OH for degradation of TC combined with Co/Co. The d-NPC produced 172.1 mg L HO within 120 min, and could degrade 96.4% of TC in EF system. The self-doped defects and graphite-nitrogen in d-NPC improved the oxygen reduction performance and increased the HO yield, while pyridine nitrogen could catalyze HO to generate ·OH. The possible pathway of TC degradation was also proposed. In this study, defective carbon materials were prepared by ball milling, which provided a new strategy for efficient in-situ HO production and the degradation of pollutants.