A synergistic enhancement strategy for CuS oxidation performance: polyvinyl pyrrolidone modification and bimetallic...

Peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation by transition-metal-based catalysts has demonstrated significant advantages for the degradation of recalcitrant organic pollutants. Nevertheless, the practical implementation of commonly employed metal catalytic systems based on PMS activation, such as copper sulfide (CuS), remains restricted due to their relatively low catalytic activity and poor stability. To address these issues, this study innovatively constructed a co-optimized CuS-based catalyst through a composite strategy integrating polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) modification and iron mud integration. This design resulted in a highly stable flower-like nanosphere with a mesoporous reactive interface. More importantly, a PVP-mediated charge conduction pathway from Cu to Fe was established, which facilitated the formation of highly active sites. The optimized catalyst demonstrated outstanding performance in degrading iohexol (IOH), achieving over 85 % removal within 30 min in both ultrapure water and real water matrices, and it remains low metal leaching (below 0.7 and 0.02 mg/L of Cu and Fe) and outstanding recyclable performance. This synthesis strategy provides a new insight into designing efficient and stable catalysts for the remediation of iodine-containing organic pollutants.