In Situ Encapsulation of Co‐N/C Nanocatalyst into Carbon Nanocubes for Selective Degradation of Sulfadiazine: High‐Performance, Confinement Effect, and Bio‐Toxicity Assessment

ABSTRACT The nanoconfined carbon materials has attracted wide attention from academia and industry because they can disperse and stabilize metal nanoparticles through spatial confinement, preventing them from agglomerating and improving their stability and catalytic activity. Herein, in situ encapsulation of Co‐N/C nanocatalyst into carbon nanocubes (Co–CNs) was designed and reported for selectively catalytic degradation of sulfadiazine via peroxodisulfate (PDS) activation. This structure of Co–CN‐800 played a vital role in intercepting natural organic matters and access of target contamination for achieving selective degradation of target contamination. The electron paramagnetic resonance result and quenching experiments confirmed that O 2 • − and 1 O 2 are the primary reactive oxygen species in the Co–CN‐800/PDS system. The specific parameters (such as E HOMO and ionization potential) of organic pollutants were found to be highly relevant to the ln k obs values of the removal of organic pollutants by Co–CN‐800/PDS system. This suggested that the occurrence of electron transfer between PDS and pollutants, which was verified by electrochemical analysis, seemed to play a crucial role in their degradation kinetics in Co–CN‐800/PDS system. Seed germination test and ecological structure–activity relationship model had confirmed the bio‐toxicity of SDZ to aquatic organism and wheat seeds was strongly decreased to ecological environment safety standards after treatment by Co–CN‐800/PDS system. For the real wastewater, the total organic carbon and chemical oxygen demand of raw pig effluent decreased by 21.4 resp . 30.4%, after treatment by Co–CN‐800/PDS system in 60 min.