1. Introduction
With the rapid development of the economy and the increasing growth of population, the quantity of wastewater produced and its overall pollution load is continuously increasing worldwide [
1,
2,
3]. According to the reports from the United Nations World Water Development, over 80 percent of wastewater worldwide is released into the environment without treatment. The releasing untreated or inadequately treated wastewater not only leads to harmful effects on human health but also results in negative environmental impacts and adverse repercussions on economic activities [
4,
5]. Water contamination caused by dye industries has caused more and more attention since the dyes are widely employed in various industries (e.g. textile, pharmaceutical, food, cosmetics, plastics, photographic, and paper industries) and possess a significant source of pollution [
6,
7,
8].
Currently, various methods such as adsorption, coagulation, advanced oxidation, and membrane separation are used in the removal of dyes from wastewater [
9,
10]. In recent years, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have made remarkable progress in the field of wastewater treatment [
11]. The degradation of dyes by AOPs contributes to the in-situ generation of free radicals with high oxidizing activity (
·OH, O
2−, SO
4−·) [
12]. These free radicals non-selectively react with most organics, being able to degrade even highly recalcitrant compounds and leading to extensive degradation or mineralization of contaminants [
13,
14].
Driven by the intense desire for lower cost, higher efficiency and facile procedure of advanced oxidation processes, electrochemical, plasma, electron beam, ultrasound, or microwave-based AOPs draws great attention in the area of wastewater treatment [
15]. Among these evaluated AOPs, microwave-enhanced AOPs can greatly improve the degradation rate and shorten the reaction time, since the ability to induce a hot spot effect, plasma discharge effect, and photoelectric effect in the microwave field. (i) The hot spots are a micro-plasma region on the catalyst surface where temperatures can reach over 1200 °C, promoting faster production of active species and oxidation of organic matter [
16]. Qi et al., Hu et al., Garcia-Costa et al., Lei et al., and Shen et al. utilized the microwave hot spot effect to efficiently degrade different organic pollutants [
17,
18,
19,
20,
21]. (ii) When microwaves act on some protrusions or metals with special shapes and sizes, charges are accumulated at the protrusions, the nearby field is stronger than the air field, and plasma discharge occurs [
22]. Qian et al, Zhao et al, Xu et al, and Zhang et al. used the plasma discharge effect generated under microwave for efficient treatment of refractory organic matter as well as white pollution [
22,
23,
24,
25]. (iii) Catalysts with semiconductor properties (e.g., transition metal oxides, semiconductors, and ferromagnetic metals) produce holes (h
+) and electrons (e
−) under MW excitation, and the excited h
+ and e
− may migrate to the catalyst surface and participate in redox reactions [
17,
26,
27].
The catalytic properties of many materials can be induced by MW irradiation. When MW irradiates these materials, the interactions between them can heat the materials rapidly to generate active sites after absorbing and converting MW energy. Thus, it is a critical issue to develop microwave active catalysts with strong microwave absorption ability and efficient microwave energy transfer ability [
28,
29,
30]. Nano-carbon materials have abundant void structures, which can increase the electron transmission path, improve conductive loss, and have a high specific surface area. At the same time, the inhomogeneous structure of the phase boundary generates abundant interfacial polarization and multiple relaxation, which enhances microwave attenuation and has great potential for practical applications [
31]. Chen et al. prepared graphene micro-flowers with a diameter of about 2-5 μm by a three-step process. The results show that the graphene micro-flowers prepared by this method have low reflection loss and exhibit ideal microwave absorption characteristics [
32].
However, due to poor impedance matching and single dielectric loss, the microwave absorption performance of carbon materials is not very ideal [
33]. To gain an ideal microwave absorption catalyst, it is necessary to design the composition and structure of the single-phase carbon material reasonably. The ideal magnetic loss can be obtained by combining carbon material with magnetic material to induce magnetic properties, and the loss mechanism is enriched while the impedance matching is improved, the microwave absorption performance of the material can be significantly improved [
34]. Magnetic materials (such as Fe, Co, Ni, and corresponding alloys) are a kind of ideal complementary materials because of their higher permeability, saturation magnetization, and snoek limit [
35,
36,
37]. When the microwave irradiates the metal, a unique discharge phenomenon occurs, which can realize the coupling of the thermal effect and the plasma effect. Li [
33] et al. synthesized the rod-like Ni@C composite and tested its microwave absorption properties. The results show that the rod-like Ni@C composite has good microwave absorption and high reuse efficiency. SiC is an ideal microwave absorber because of its high microwave absorption characteristics in the gigahertz frequency. The superior thermal conductivity means it can still be used as a catalyst carrier at high temperatures, thus ensuring high catalytic performance. However, due to its inherent low conductivity and single polarization characteristics, SiC needs to be combined with different magnetic materials or carbon-based materials to enhance electrical conductivity and enrich its polarization types to improve microwave absorption performance [
38]. Samarjit Singh et al. prepared a Ni/SiC/ graphene composite material with a minimum reflection loss of -59.15dB, showing good microwave absorption performance [
39].
Based on the above ideas, we propose a novel Ni@SiC/CNFs catalyst for MW-AOP. Except for the outstanding microwave absorption performance, carbon fibers, as supporting materials, possess high electron mobility and can boost charge separation/electron transfer and improve catalytic oxidation. When SiC and Ni nanoparticles can produce hole electron pair and strong plasma discharge under microwave irradiation. Holes electronic react with O2 and H2O in the air will produce a strong oxidizing active group. Hot spots and plasmas arising from this discharge phenomenon can reduce the chemical reaction times of contaminants present on the material and increase their degradation rates.
In this work, the Ni@SiC/CNFs composites as MV-AOP catalysts were synthesized by the electrostatic spinning method. The morphology, microstructure, and phase composition of the Ni@SiC/CNFs were characterized through complementary analytical ways. The microwave catalytic performance of Ni@SiC/CNFs was evaluated with MB as the target containment. The catalytic mechanism was proposed to explain the synergistic effect of Ni@SiC/CNFs catalyst under microwave irradiation.