Triple-channel electron transfer of oxygen vacancy-engineered Z-scheme FeCo2O4/defective BiOBr-Ag plasmonic catalysts: A full-day catalyst for light/dark dual-mode environmental remediation

The integration of photo-Fenton catalysis couple oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) has shown significant advantages in industrial water-pollution treatment. In this work, a ternary heterojunction catalyst (Ag@FeCo 2 O 4 /Defective-BiOBr, AFB) with rich oxygen vacancies (OVs) was developed by integrating defect engineering, Z-scheme heterojunction, and Ag surface plasmon for light/dark dual-mode pollutants degradation. A unique “three-channel” electron transfer mechanism was designed for the first time, enabling the enhanced electron migration dynamics. The density functional theory (DFT) theoretical calculation revealed that Fe/Co diatomic doping structure and OVs significantly reduced the H 2 O 2 activation energy, facilitating the radical formation. Under light irradiation, AFB exhibited efficient degradation (98.5 %, 40 min, pH = 3.0) of real-industrial pollutants driven by photo-Fenton degradation. Even in dark condition, AFB also showed the dark degradation capability, enabling 89.5 % degradation by Ag-catalyzed oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Benefiting from this, AFB showed features of efficient degradation capability, wide applicability (light/dark dual-mode, pH = 3.0 ∼ 9.0), and full-day operation ability. Significantly, stability tests collectively indicated excellent stability in structure and environment resistance, as high as stable regeneration (over 90 % efficiency after five recycles), further supporting its potential in real system. This work provided a unique design and mechanistic insights of new material paradigm in sustainable AOP environment remediation, and supported for the self-adaptive response removal of challenging pollutions.