Bibliometric overview of global electrocatalytic water treatment research

Remediation of refractory organic pollutants in aquatic environments has become a core research priority in global environmental science, and electrocatalytic oxidation has emerged as one of the most promising advanced oxidation processes owing to its high degradation efficiency, environmental compatibility and operational flexibility. Herein, a bibliometric methodology is adopted to systematically elucidate the global research landscape, intellectual structure and evolutionary dynamics of this field: based on 19,775 relevant publications retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection covering 2007 to 2025, a comprehensive quantitative analysis is performed using the visualization tools VOSviewer and Biblioshiny, covering publication characteristics, subject distribution, national and institutional collaboration networks, keyword co-occurrence clustering, temporal evolution of research hotspots, and profiles of highly cited papers. The results indicate that the overall research output maintains a sustained growth trend and has entered a phase of rapid expansion since 2018; The Chinese Academy of Sciences holds the highest centrality in the institutional collaboration network, acting as a major regional cooperation hub within Asian academic networks. Research themes can be grouped into four major clusters: development of catalytic materials, reaction kinetics and mechanism interpretation, pollutant mineralization performance, and electro-Fenton systems, while boron-doped diamond electrodes, carbon-based materials and nano-modification strategies constitute the mainstream directions of current material research. The global collaboration network presents a multi-center clustered pattern, with European and North American countries showing a higher ratio of international co-authorship, and China presents the highest total publication output, while European and American nations exhibit wider international cooperation breadth and higher average citation per article. This study systematically maps the development trajectory and intellectual framework of electrocatalytic water treatment research, and identifies that low-cost catalytic material development, multi-technology coupled process optimization, by-product control and intelligent process optimization will be the core future research directions, providing objective data support and decision-making references for research planning, academic collaboration and technology deployment in this field.