Enhanced singlet oxygen generation in PCN-224-Zn without the need of electron-hole separation for efficient photocatalytic water disinfection

Photocatlytic water disinfection for pathengenic miroorgasnisms removal is of great importance to public health safety, however the photocataltyic performance is unsatisfactory due to the low reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. In this work, an innovative energy-transfer-mediated oxygen activation system on PCN-224-Zn is proposed for selective singlet oxygen generation without the need of electron-hole separation. The as-prepared PCN-224-Zn exhibits remarkable singlet triggered photocatalytic E-coli inactivation and organic pollutant degradation performance. The enhanced photocatalytic activity is attributed to the introduction of Zn into the metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that facilitates the transformation of electron-hole couple from singlet to triplet state for selective singlet oxygen generation with high efficiency. This work provides a new oxygen activation pathway for efficient and selective ROS generation without the need of electron-hole separation.