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Nature Water (2026)
Industrial hydrazine (N2H4) wastewater is highly toxic and difficult to treat sustainably, and current treatment technologies are typically energy/chemical intensive while conventional photocatalysts either underutilize the solar spectrum or suffer from inefficient charge utilization. Here we induce efficient narrow-bandgap organic photovoltaic catalysts (OPCs) with donor–acceptor heterojunctions that harvest visible to near-infrared solar light and facilitate effective charge separation and transfer to drive remediation of hydrazine wastewater while co-producing hydrogen without external energy input or added sacrificial reagents. Then we effectively enhance the operating stability and performance in complex wastewater matrices by incorporating Al2O3-coated OPC nanoparticles. Furthermore, the detailed catalytic mechanism based on proton-coupled electron transfer is revealed through density functional theory calculations combining in situ spectroscopy and isotope experiment. Under simulated sunlight (AM 1.5 G, 100 mW cm−2), the optimized OPC nanoparticles reduce 640 ppm N2H4 to trace levels (hundredths of ppm) within 5 h, meeting the industrial and agricultural safety standards, with mass/area-normalized hydrogen evolution rates of up to 559.3 ± 28.0 mmol h−1 g−1/117.6 ± 4.7 mmol h−1 m−2 and good recyclability and no secondary discharge, demonstrating a feasible, efficient and sustainable route for hazardous wastewater remediation.
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We thank S. Yu and J. Ma for their help on the ecological safety assessment.
Y. Lin thanks the CAS Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research (YSBR-110), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB0520102) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22335001).
Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Laboratory of Organic Solids and Laboratory of Structural Chemistry of Unstable and Stable Species, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Yuhao Wu, Yuhsuan Lee, Zhenzhen Zhang, Yawen Li, Wenqin Si, Shuming Bai & Yuze Lin
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Yuhao Wu, Yuhsuan Lee, Yawen Li, Wenqin Si, Shuming Bai & Yuze Lin
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Y. Lin conceived the idea, supervised the project and wrote the paper. Y. Lin and Y.W. designed the experiments. Y.W. carried out most of experiments and prepared the draft. Y. Li assisted in the measurement of TA. W.S. carried out the TEM measurement. Z.Z. helped with the paper revisions. Y. Lee and S.B. performed DFT calculations. All authors reviewed this paper.
Correspondence to Yuze Lin.
The authors declare no competing interests.
Nature Water thanks Ho-Hsiu Chou and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Supplementary text, Figs. 1–42, Tables 1–4, Notes 1–5 and Appendix 1.
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Wu, Y., Lee, Y., Zhang, Z. et al. Solar remediation of hydrazine wastewater using efficient narrow-bandgap organic photovoltaic catalysts. Nat Water (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-026-00666-1
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