One-pot preparation of poly(triazine imide) with intercalation of Cu ions: A heterogeneous catalyst for peroxymonosulfate activation to degradate organic pollutants under sunlight

A novel poly(triazine imide) (PTI)with intercalation of Cu ion heterogeneous catalysts (Cu/PTI) was synthesized by one-pot thermal condensation of melamine and copper acetate as precursors, resulting in a material with stoichiometry of C 6 N 8.7 Cu. The microscopic morphology and structural characteristics of Cu/PTI were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, FT-IR, and XPS. The characterization results corroborated the highly condensed triazine-based structure, and copper mainly existed in the form of Cu + . The possible formation mechanism of composite materials was proposed. The prepared composite Cu/PTI catalyst was used to activate PMS to enhance the simulated pollutant RhB degradation under sunlight irradiation. The experimental results show that sunlight could improve the activation efficiency of Cu/PTI to PMS, Cu/PTI(1:4) had the best activation ability, and the degradation rate of RhB reached 96.2% in 60 min, nearly doubling that without sunlight. Critical impacting factors, initial solution pH was investigated in terms of the catalytic efficiency. The catalyst has a high ability to activate PMS to degrade pollutants in the range of pH = 3–10. In addition, quencher experiments demonstrated that O 2 · - , 1 O 2 , h V B + , and S O 4 · - are the main active species, and a detailed catalytic mechanism was proposed. Thus, the enhanced reactivity of the Cu/PTI catalyst was attributed to the existence of dual catalytic sites and the synergistic effect between Cu and PTI. This strategy provides a feasible way to treat wastewater using Cu/PTI with PMS under sunlight.