Rethinking strategies to attenuate organic pollutants: Mechanisms and challenges of catalytic pollutants polymerization

There exist two distinct pathways for the migration and conversion of organic pollutants in natural water, namely degradation and polymerization. From the perspective of the carbon cycle in the water purification process, compared with the degradation of organic pollutants, oxidative poly­merization could directly convert organic matter in water into solid organic polymers, which can not only realize the organic carbon recovery but also solve the problem of high energy consumption and high carbon emissions in organic pollutants degradation, demonstrating its great potential for development and application. Here, we summarize the nature of oxidative degradation and oxidative polymerization of organic ­pollutants in carbon transport-based water purification techniques, focusing on the principles of the polymerization reaction, pollutant polymerization conversion pathways, catalytic pollutant polymerization methods and catalysts. For the first time elaborated on ROS electron transfer as the core catalytic pollutant polymerization reaction mechanism. Finally, the current problems and challenges of catalytic pollutant polymerization are highlighted and future research goals and trends in water pollution are discussed. This concludes that, from the nature of carbon migration, catalytic organic pollutant polymerization has significant advantages over oxidative degradation in terms of reducing chemical inputs and CO2 emissions, achieving efficient removal of refractory organic pollutants, and recovering organic carbon, thus demonstrating a highly competitive application in achieving carbon neutrality in water pollution remediation (such as high concentrations of industrial wastewater). However, the growing applications of water treatment technologies are inextricably linked to a substantial quantity of preliminary basic research, hence the critical need for related work.