ABSTRACT For wastewater remediation, efficiently avoiding harmful co‐product formation while achieving carbon source recovery remains a challenge worthy of attention. Herein, we deliberately bridge a polar pyridinic moiety into carbon nitride (PDCN) to construct a lattice distortion structure with interfacial charge asymmetric polarization, achieving complete photodegradation of glyphosate (Gly) wastewater into sarcosine (>99% selectivity) and CO (1166.2 µmol g −1 h −1 ) within a short timeframe. The introduction of polar pyridine not only causes the C─N─C bond angle of PDCN to distort, generating a local polarization field, but also induces a dipole field, which achieves effective separation and directional transfer of photogenerated carriers, respectively. This directed electron localization enhances O 2 adsorption by PDCN's electron‐rich pyridine regions and its conversion into reactive •OH for cleaving C─P bonds. Furthermore, PDCN's electron‐deficient heptazine region activates Gly's α‐C─H bond via electrostatic interactions with phosphate groups, promoting the selective cleavage of C─P bonds in Gly and avoiding the formation of toxic aminomethylphosphonic acid. Glycine and other co‐products show no significant impact on the growth of organisms like fathead minnows and mung beans. This work establishes a viable perspective for efficient wastewater purification and carbon recovery enabled by the synergistic interaction of localized polarization and dipole fields.
Chen et al. (Thu,) studied this question.