Modulating the structure and coordination environment can effectively improve the CO₂RR activity and selectivity of single atom copper catalysts.

To improve the separation efficiency of photogenerated carriers in ZnS, constructing a ZnS-based heterostructure with ZnO is assessed to be an efficient strategy, and a ZnO/ZnS photocatalyst was prepared by a solid-phase approach, and the structure and morphology were systematically studied. The ZnO/ZnS photocatalyst showed excellent photocatalytic properties on methyl orange, rhodamine B and tetracycline under UV light irradiation, indicating that the photocatalyst exhibited efficient broad-spectrum photocatalytic performance. Compared with ZnS, the degradation rates of ZnO/ZnS photocatalysts for methyl orange, rhodamine B and tetracycline under UV light increased from 21%, 9% and 32% to 96%, 94% and 93%, respectively, higher than the reported ZnO/ZnS composites synthesized by a novel wet chemical route, attributing to the improvement of light absorption ability and the effective separation of carriers. In addition, the influence of the sacrificial agent on the reaction system was investigated, and the synergistic mechanism of ZnO and ZnS in the catalytic process was analyzed according to the fluorescence spectra, photocurrent and first-principles calculation results, and a possible catalytic mechanism was put forward.

Recently, the use of semiconductor-based photocatalytic technology as an effective way to mitigate the environmental crisis attracted considerable interest. Here, the S-scheme BiOBr/CdS heterojunction with abundant oxygen vacancies (Vo-BiOBr/CdS) was prepared by the solvothermal method using ethylene glycol as a solvent. The photocatalytic activity of the heterojunction was investigated by degrading rhodamine B (RhB) and methylene blue (MB) under 5 W light-emitting diode (LED) light. Notably, the degradation rate of RhB and MB reached 97% and 93% in 60 min, respectively, which were better than that of BiOBr, CdS, and BiOBr/CdS. It was due to the construction of the heterojunction and the introduction of Vo, which facilitated the spatial separation of carriers and enhanced the visible-light harvest. The radical trapping experiment suggested that superoxide radicals (·O₂⁻) acted as the main active species. Based on valence balance spectra, Mott-Schottky(M-S) spectra, and DFT theoretical calculations, the photocatalytic mechanism of the S-scheme heterojunction was proposed. This research provides a novel strategy for designing efficient photocatalysts by constructing S-scheme heterojunctions and introducing oxygen vacancies for solving environmental pollution.

Under the background of the Paris Agreement on reducing greenhouse gases, waste wools were converted into wool carbon fiber (WCF) and WCF–MoS₂ composites by low-temperature catalytic hydrothermal carbonization. Their structures and gas-sensing performances were studied for the first time. Due to the existence of heterojunctions, the responses of the WCF–MoS₂ composite to the five analytes were 3–400 times those of MoS₂ and 2–11 times those of WCF. Interestingly, because of the N, P, and S elements contained in wools, the WCF prepared by the hydrothermal method was realized the doping of N, P, and S, which caused the sensing curves of WCF to have different shapes for different analytes. This characteristic was also well demonstrated by the WCF–MoS₂ composite, which inspired us to realize the discriminative detection only by a single WCF–MoS₂ sensor and image recognition technology. What’s more, the WCF–MoS₂ composite also showed a high sensitivity, a high selectivity, and a rapid response to NH₃. The response time and the recovery time to 3 ppm NH₃ were about 16 and 5 s, respectively. The detection of limit of WCF–MoS₂ for NH₃ was 19.1 ppb. This work provides a new idea for the development of sensors and the resource utilization of wool waste.

Antibiotics are widely used in medicine, livestock and other fields, leading to increasingly prominent enrichment, transformation and potential ecological risks in the global water environment. This poses a serious threat to ecological balance and public health, making the development of efficient and economical treatment technologies a research hotspot for addressing water antibiotic pollution. This paper systematically analyzes the current status of global water antibiotic pollution, migration and transformation characteristics, and research progress in removal technologies. We summarize the main types of antibiotics in water and their spatial distribution across different global water bodies, explore their primary entry pathways into the water environment, and elaborate on transformation behaviors such as migration, adsorption and degradation, as well as residual risks to aquatic ecosystems and human health. We also focus on existing artificial removal technologies, including physical methods like adsorption and membrane separation, chemical methods centered on advanced oxidation, and biological methods utilizing microbial metabolism. And we discuss emerging technologies such as microbial fuel cells and biocatalyst remediation, along with hybrid processes, regarding their development status and application potential. Finally, we outline key challenges in practical application of current technologies, provide an outlook on future research directions and engineering applications, aiming to offer references for water antibiotic pollution control.