It is still a challenging work to realize the universality of photocatalytic materials for unselective removing various organic pollutants in water. Here a surface dual-doped Cu/Cl-g-C3N4 photocatalyst is firstly prepared, which exhibits much more superior photocatalytic performance for degrading multifarious persistent organic pollutants including tetracycline hydrochloride (TC-HCl), o-chlorophenol, bisphenol A and 2-mercaptobenzothiazole in water than pure g-C3N4. The high-efficiency and unselective photocatalytic degradation performance derives from the surface dual-doped effect of Cu/Cl elements on g-C3N4, which results in the extended visible light harvest range, elevated CB potential and improved the separation efficiency of charge carriers. The intermediate products, degradation pathway, degree of mineralization and reaction mechanism of representative TC-HCl pollutant over the surface dual-doped Cu/Cl-g-C3N4 photocatalyst are revealed in depth. This work makes an important development for treating the persistent organic pollutants in the water environments by exploiting new, low-cost and high-efficiency photocatalytic materials. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.