Selective enhancement of degradation capacity of organic pollutants based on low-temperature plasma: The role of specificity of catalysts and reactive oxygen species

The use of low-temperature plasma systems to remove refractory organic pollutants in municipal sewage has achieved preliminary results. However, the relationships between the role of specificity of catalysts and reactive species need to be further clarified. Here, an electrostatic spinning strategy by doping energetic MOF and Fe-MOF to adjust the structure and components of catalysts, and achieve the selective synergies removal of contaminants including bisphenols A, tetracycline, atrazine, acid orange 7, and Congo red. This can be attributed to the doping of the energetic MOF, which results in more dispersed Fe active sites and a more developed pore structure, which in turn drastically increases the utilization of the active site. The frontier molecular orbital theory and the Fukui function elaborate the possible degradation pathways. This work illustrated the relationship between the selection of catalysts, the production of active species, and the specific removal of pollutants in DBD systems.