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Simultaneous treatment of aquatic pesticides and microplastics onto hexagonal g-CN nanotubes/AgCl@Ag with nitrogen vacancies: removal activity and mutual effects.
Summary
Scientists created a new material that can pull both a common weed-killer chemical and microplastic particles out of water at the same time, using light to help break down the pesticide. This matters because pesticides and microplastics often team up in rivers and lakes, potentially making pollution harder to clean up and more harmful — and this study shows a possible way to tackle both at once, plus the cleanup material can be reused. The catch: it works best when pesticide levels aren't too high, since too much pesticide can clog up the material's ability to also grab microplastics.
Pesticides are typical toxic organic pollutants that can readily associate with microplastics owing to the large specific surface area and lipophilicity of microplastics, leading to more complex ecological risks in aquatic environments. In this work, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) was selected as the target pesticide, and HCNT/AgCl@Ag with interface induced nitrogen vacancies was constructed by loading AgCl@Ag onto the surface of hexagonal g-CN nanotubes (HCNT) through an in situ photoreduction method. Benefiting from the high specific surface area and the Z-scheme heterojunction, the material exhibited good photocatalytic activity for 2,4-D degradation and high adsorption removal rate for microplastics. The catalyst could be regenerated by dissolving the microplastics adsorbed onto its surface. In addition, mechanistic studies indicate that competition for active sites between 2,4-D and microplastics occurs only at high 2,4-D concentrations, where 2,4-D dominate the catalyst surface and hinder microplastic adsorption. These findings indicate that the mutual effects between 2,4-D and microplastics largely depends on pollutant concentrations, highlighting the importance of pollutant loading in practical water treatment.