2026-10-14T13:24:53Z https://www.scidb.cn/oai

10.57760/sciencedb.j00125.00193 2026-06-23T09:33:16Z

2026-06-23 Single-atom Iron Catalysts over Carbon Nanosheets with Tuned Defects for Efficient Phenol Degradation via Peroxydisulfate Activation doi:10.57760/sciencedb.j00125.00193 en Phenolic compounds are typical refractory organic pollutants in coal chemical coking wastewater. The large-scale application of high-performance Fe-C composites in advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) for water treatment is constrained by their complex synthesis and high cost. This study reports a low-cost Fe/N-C catalyst composed of nitrogen-doped carbon nanosheets containing abundant defects (sp3-C/sp2-C = 0.66) and single-atom iron sites. This catalyst is prepared using coal-tar pitch (CTP), a common by-product of the coal chemical industry, as the carbon precursor, dicyandiamide as the auxiliary nitrogen source, and FeCl3·6H2O as the iron precursor, via a self-assembly and pyrolysis strategy that utilizes graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) as a template. The Fe/N-C catalyst exhibits outstanding catalytic performance for the activation of peroxydisulfate (PDS), achieving over 98% phenol degradation within 30 minutes and 60% total organic carbon (TOC) removal rate. Comprehensive characterization and mechanism studies have shown that, in the Fe/N-C/PDS system, the degradation of phenol proceeds via both radical and non-radical pathways, with singlet oxygen (1O2) acting as the primary reactive oxygen species. Furthermore, compared with N-C, Fe/N-C demonstrates a greater ability to mediate interfacial electron transfer. This work provides an economically viable technical pathway for converting coal-tar pitch into carbon-based materials for efficient water treatment. Defect carbon materials; Single-atom iron; Advanced oxidation; Electron transfer; Coal-tar pitch Ruixue Wang Zihan Qiu Runmeng Zhang Changyu Leng Xuzhen Wang Jieshan Qiu RESTRICTED dataset Science Data Bank