Novel polymer optical fibers with high mass-loading g-C₃N₄ embedded metamaterial porous structures achieve rapid micropollutant degradation in water

The performance of conventional photocatalytic reactors suffers from low photocatalyst mass-loading densities affixed to surfaces and light scattering losses or light attenuation in slurry reactors. These limitations are overcome by fabrication of high mass-loading g-C₃N₄ embedded metamaterial porous structures on flexible polymeric optical fibers (g-C₃N₄-POFs). In this study, the fabricated g-C₃N₄-POFs contain g-C₃N₄ with mass-loading 100−1000x higher than previouly reported, enabling efficient light delivery to g-C₃N₄ and improved pollutant mass transport within metamaterial porous structures. The key fabrication step involved using acetone, based on its high saturated vapor pressure and low dielectric constant, making roll-to-roll mass production of high mass-loading photocatalyst-embedded metamaterial POFs possible at room-temperature within seconds. Using bundles of 150 individual g-C₃N₄-POFs in the reactors, we achieved 4x higher degradation rates for micropollutants under visible light irradiation at 420 nm compared with equivalent mass-to-volume ratios of photocatalysts in a slurry suspension reactor. The bundled g-C₃N₄-POF reactor showed no degradation in the structural integrity or loss of pollutant degradation using deionized or model drinking water under accumulated HO• exposures of ∼4.5 × 10⁻⁹ M•s after 20 cycles of treatment. It operates continuously at g-C₃N₄ dosages equivalent to 100−1000 g/L and a water depth over 40 cm, making it a feasible alternative to conventional photocatalytic reactors.