Multi-functional catalysts for solar light-assisted water treatment – MULTICAT

Water treatment is an urgent worldwide health issue that scientists must address. Catalytic Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOP) are promising technologies to meet the challenges of water remediation, as conventional treatments in place fail in removing efficiently a wide span of high-concern hazardous, biorecalcitrant organic contaminants. MULTICAT is a proof-of-principle project aiming at designing a novel architectured multi-functional 3-ways light-assisted composite catalyst interfacing the catalytic function of H2O2 synthesis with the function of mineralization of refractory organic compounds in water by a synergistic combination of two AOPs. On one side, H2O2-mediated light-assisted catalysis takes advantage of the photocatalysis and heterogeneous Photo-Fenton reaction synergy occurring at ambient temperature on novel, versatile and robust narrow band gap dual catalysts to perform full mineralization of refractory compounds in water at high reaction rates under solar light. In addition, in-situ synthesis of H2O2 under solar light will be optimized using novel and tunable narrow band gap nanostructured conjugated polymer semiconductors. Based on the concept of catalytic localism, we aim at designing catalytic architectures that embark solar light active catalysts allowing in-situ H2O2 synthesis from H2O and O2 and further usage. They will be built by layer-by-layer self-assembly using inorganic polyelectrolytes to control the spatial positioning of both catalysts.