Nature Communications · 5 October 2026 · From issue 47
Reconfiguring interfacial hydrogen-bond networks to enhance anodic oxidation for efficient wastewater treatment
Adding iron to electrodes made water break apart faster to clean pollutants.
Tong Liu, Shuang Zhong et al.
A new way to clean dirty water uses iron to help electricity break apart water molecules faster. The iron changes how water molecules link together at the electrode surface. This made a cleaning particle called a hydroxyl radical form 7 times more often. The system ran for 500 hours, removed about 95% of a tough pollutant, and cost 44.3% less than a common method.
The drop in treatment cost compared to a common electrode method, over 500 hours of operation.
Lab-scale test only, not yet proven at full industrial scale.
Integrity screen: passed (3 checks) Checked 6 October 2026. Retraction record: none. DOI resolves at doi.org. Metadata record found (Nature Communications). Read the source
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