Recent advances on modified reticulated vitreous carbon for water and wastewater treatment-A mini-review

Recently, modifications on reticulated vitreous carbon (RVC) have attracted attention as a promising strategy to produce low-cost, stable, and highly active electrodes leading to significant advances in the water/wastewater treatment field compared with raw RVC. Modified RVC materials have been used as cathode, anode, and membrane. Improvements on physical and electrocatalytic properties are achieved by RVC modification via diverse strategies, including the deposition of metal oxides, the introduction of surface functional groups, and the formation of composites, which were used to remove organic contaminants and pathogens from water matrices, as summarized in this mini-review. This mini-review mainly focused on papers published from 2015 to 2020 that reported modified RVC electrodes to eliminate pollutants and pathogens from water matrices by electrochemical advanced oxidation processes. Likewise, news challenges and opportunities are discussed, and perspectives for the ongoing and future studies in this research field are also given.