Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Pollutants: A Review

Abstract

Water pollution is increasing at an ever increasing pace and the whole world is in the cancerous grip of this pollution. Various industries are discharging their untreated effluents into the nearby water resources; thus, adding to the existing water pollution to a great extent. Hence, there is a pressing demand to develop an alternate technology for wastewater treatment and in this context; photocatalysis has emerged as an Advanced Oxidation Process with green chemical approach for such a treatment. This chapter deals with photocatalytic degradation of different kinds of organic pollutants; mainly surfactants, pesticides, dyes, phenols, chloro compounds, nitrogen containing compounds etc. Mechanisms of their degradation have also been discussed with hydroxyl and allied radicals as the main active oxidizing species.

Nanoscale TiO2 films and their application in remediation of organic pollutants

“…TiO 2 is chemically inert, corrosion resistant, relatively non-toxic, inexpensive, and does not contribute any chemical or hazardous waste to the environment [3][4][5]. Consequently, it has been widely used in academic research and a variety of commercial applications, ranging from anti-fogging paints [6], photovoltaics (such as solar cells) [7,8], sensing applications [9,10] and photocatalysis of organic pollutants [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26].…”

Visible Light Assisted Photocatalytic Activity of Co-doped ZnO, In-Doped ZnO and (Co, In) co- doped ZnO Nanoparticles

“…availability of active sites remains the same at a fixed catalyst dosage. The dye molecules start acting as a filter for the incident light and result in a decrease in the rate of degradation of MB [32]. Hence, the optimum concentration of MB for better photodegradation was found to be 10µM.…”

Transparent CaF2 surface crystallized CaO–2B2O3 glass possessing efficient photocatalytic and antibacterial properties

“…It is mainly caused by organic and bacterial pollutants, which is a potential threat for living organisms . Photocatalysis process is a promising and efficient approach for the removal of water pollutants . The photo‐induced degradation of organic pollutants and microbes for the treatment of water has been performed by many researchers .…”