LAUSR

Abstract Due to the selectivity and environmental tolerance of non-radical reaction reactions, they have emerged as a promising way to treat special water bodies. Herein, we proposed a new non-radical reaction system that used a Cu and O co-doped g-C3N4 catalyst (CuO-CN) activated by peroxydisulfate (PDS) or peroxymonosulfate (PMS). In CuO-CN, Cu and O atoms were introduced into the structure of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) in an innovative configuration, resulting in a differentiated charge distribution around the Cu and O centres. The PDS/CuO-CN and PMS/CuO-CN systems could selectively degrade organic pollutants (e.g., bisphenol A, BPA) over a wide pH range (3–9), and the maximum BPA removal could reach 99%. For the PDS/CuO-CN system, the mechanism was hypothesized to involve the effective removal of BPA via electron transfer, and the PMS/CuO-CN system exploited the synergistic effect of singlet oxygen (1O2) and electron transfer. This study describes a novel process for effective PMS or PDS activation by CuO-CN to efficiently degrade organic pollutants via a non-radical pathway.