Engineered material uses light to destroy PFAS, other contaminants
HOUSTON – (Dec. 15, 2025) – Materials scientists at Rice University and collaborators have developed a material that uses light to break down a range of pollutants in water, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, the “forever chemicals” that have garnered attention for their pervasiveness.
The process involves the use of a class of materials known as covalent organic frameworks, or COFs, whose porous structure ⎯ and hence high surface area ⎯ make them useful in light-driven, or photocatalytic, reactions. When they interact with light, some of the electrons in COF molecules get displaced, forming holes, and this bifurcation of charges is what makes COFs good photocatalysts.
According to a study published in Materials Today, the Rice team grew a COF material directly onto a two-dimensional film of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), giving rise to a hybrid supercleansing surface that needs only light in order to cut through tough pollutants, including pharmaceutical waste, dyes and PFAS.
“By combining two safe, lightweight materials in a new way, we built a powerful pollution-fighting surface that works quickly, works on many different pollutants and does not rely on metals that could harm the environment,” said Yifan Zhu, a postdoctoral researcher in Rice’s Department of Materials Science and Nanoengineering and a first author on the study. “This matters because it offers a cleaner, cheaper and more sustainable way to protect our water.”
To construct this surface, the researchers had to find a way to combine the two materials, which are usually difficult to attach to one another. They did so using defect engineering, a technique that deliberately embeds defects or imperfections into a material in order to engender new properties or behaviors. In this case, the team etched microscopic “scratches” into the hBN surface. The imperfections served as reactive sites anchoring the COF to the hBN film and enabling it to grow directly on top. The resulting interface directs the light-energized electrons and holes in different directions, creating the cleansing effect.
“By growing them directly together rather than simply mixing them, we created a connected structure where charges could travel easily without getting trapped,” Zhu said. “This approach had not been done before with this pair of materials, especially because hBN is usually very hard to modify.”
To examine performance under practical conditions, the team tested the material in vertical and horizontal flowing-water reactors ⎯ mirroring equivalent setups in water treatment facilities. The material performed consistently over repeated cleansing cycles, maintaining structure and stability.
“These findings show that a single, metal-free material can tackle multiple hard-to-remove pollutants,” said Jun Lou, a corresponding author on the study who is Rice’s Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Materials Science and Nanoengineering. “This moves us closer to practical, low-cost solutions for cleaner water.”
Qilin Li, Rice’s Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is also a corresponding on the study, alongside Mingjie Liu, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Florida. Other contributors from Rice are Yuren Feng, Xiang Zhang, Qing Ai, Tianyou Xie, Xintong Weng, Lixin Zhou, Tianshu Zhai, Yifeng Liu, Xiaochuan Huang, Chen-yang Lin, Sarah Glass, Bongki Shin, Yimo Han, Angel Martà and Pulickel Ajayan. The work was a collaboration between Rice and University of Florida collaborators.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation (2113882, 1449500, 2404270); the Air Force Research Laboratory International Research, Innovation and Science in Nanotechnology (RISING) Center at Rice; and the Welch Foundation (C-2248, C-2065). The content in this press release is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of funding organizations and institutions.
-30-
This news release can be found online at news.rice.edu.
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.
Peer-reviewed paper:
Covalent organic framework/hexagonal boron nitride heterostructure photocatalysts for efficient degradation of emerging contaminants | Materials Today | DOI: 10.1016/j.mattod.2025.11.004
Authors: Yifan Zhu, Yuren Feng, Yunrui Yan, Zhiyu Wang, Xiang Zhang, Somayeh Faraji, Qing Ai, Tianyou Xie, Xintong Weng, Lixin Zhou, Tianshu Zhai, Yifeng Liu, Xiaochuan Huang, Chen-yang Lin, Sarah Glass, Bongki Shin, Yimo Han, Angel MartÃ, Pulickel Ajayan, Mingjie Liu, Qilin Li and Jun Lou
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mattod.2025.11.004
About Rice:
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Texas, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of architecture, business, continuing studies, engineering and computing, humanities, music, natural sciences and social sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. Internationally, the university maintains the Rice Global Paris Center, a hub for innovative collaboration, research and inspired teaching located in the heart of Paris. With 4,776 undergraduates and 4,104 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 7 for best-run colleges by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by the Wall Street Journal and is included on Forbes’ exclusive list of “New Ivies.”
Journal
Materials Today
Method of Research
Experimental study
Article Title
Covalent organic framework/hexagonal boron nitride heterostructure photocatalysts for efficient degradation of emerging contaminants
No comments:
Post a Comment