Porous graphite felt electrode with catalytic defects for enhanced degradation of pollutants by electro-Fenton process

Etched graphite felt (EGF) was successfully fabricated using in situ CoOX etching process and used as a cathode to degrade diuron in the electro-Fenton (E-Fenton) process. The graphite felt prepared using the in situ CoOX etching process could markedly enhance the electrochemical properties with high electroactive surface area and rapid electron transfer capacity. Due to the high content of defects and porous structure, EGF electrode exhibited superior performance with high yield of hydrogen peroxide and rapid regeneration capacity of Fe2+, achieving 100% removal of diuron (20 mg/L) at −0.7 V/SCE within 50 min. In addition, the stability of the EGF cathode showed no significant decay in the performance after 35 cycles. EGF electrode had achieved good degradation effect for different pollutants, such as atrazine, amoxicillin, atenolol and 2, 4, 6-trichlorophenol. In three runs, the EGF cathode showed low Co leaching (<1 ppm). Moreover, the possible degradation pathways of diuron were proposed by analyzing the intermediates in this work. The results obtained in this work highlight the potential of EGF electrode for use as an E-Fenton cathode.