Strategies for enhancing the heterogeneous Fenton catalytic reactivity: A review

Heterogeneous Fenton reactions have gained widespread attention in removing recalcitrant organic contaminants as the reaction between solid Fenton catalysts and H2O2 can generate highly reactive hydroxyl radicals (HO). However, several drawbacks, such as the low-speed generation of Fe(II), high consumption of H2O2, and acidic reaction conditions (generally at ˜ pH 3), are always the core issues that hamper the large-scale application of heterogeneous Fenton reactions in environmental remediation. Thus, a large number of studies have been devoted to tackling these drawbacks, and this paper intends to comprehensively review the developed strategies for enhancing heterogeneous Fenton reactivity, mainly over the last decade. Based on a comprehensive survey of previous studies, we categorize these strategies according to their reaction mechanisms. For example, introducing additional electrons (e.g., from external electric fields, electron-rich materials, semiconductors, plasmonic materials, or doped metals) to heterogeneous Fenton catalysts can accelerate the generation of Fe(II); the in situ generation of H2O2 can be achieved by combining ultrasound, electricity, semiconductors, and iron-based catalysts in the system; and controlling the specific morphologies and exposed facets of heterogeneous Fenton catalysts can greatly promote the decomposition of H2O2. In addition, we briefly introduce some recent novel heterogeneous Fenton-like reactions that are of particular interest, including constructing dual reaction centers (i.e., the electron-poor center and the electron-rich center) and synthesizing single-atom catalysis-based heterogeneous Fenton-like catalysts. Moreover, this review article analyzes and compares the merits of each strategy for enhancing heterogeneous Fenton/Fenton-like reactions. We believe this review can motivate the construction of novel and efficient heterogeneous Fenton/Fenton-like systems and help readers choose proper Fenton/Fenton-like reaction systems for industrial applications.