Photoelectrocatalytic Materials for Water Disinfection
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Zhang, Haimin
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An, T
Zhao, H
Wong, PK
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Abstract
This chapter summarizes recent progress on semiconductor-based photoelectrocatalytic materials with UV and visible light activities that are applicable to bactericidal purpose. Semiconductor photocatalysis (e.g., TiO2, ZnO, WO3, SnO2, and C3N4) under UV/visible light irradiation has been extensively investigated in environmental remediation during the past 40 years because the developed photocatalysts are powerful toward the decomposition of organic pollutants and inactivation of biohazards. However, low photocatalytic efficiency of photocatalysts has been a general issue limiting photocatalysis technology for practical application owing to rapid recombination of photogenerated electrons and holes. To date, considerable efforts have been made to suppress the recombination of photogenerated carriers (e.g., photoelectrons and holes), thus effectively improving the photocatalytic efficiency of photocatalyst, such as surface modification (e.g., noble metal, graphene modification) of photocatalyst and coupling of several semiconductor photocatalysts with matched electronic band structures. Among all investigated approaches, photoelectrochemical technology has been a general means to effectively suppress the recombination of photogenerated carries by an applied potential bias serving as external motive force to rapidly remove the photocatalytically generated electrons to the external circuit then to the counter electrode where forced reduction reactions occur. The rapid removal of the photoelectrons from the conduction band of photocatalyst effectively suppresses the recombination of the photogenerated carries and prolongs the lifetime of photoholes to facilitate the direct photohole oxidation reactions. However, the photoelectrocatalytic performance is highly dependent on its key component – photoelectrode material, such as structure, crystal phase, chemical composition, and exposed crystal facets. Herein, we summarize the recent development of semiconductor-based photoelectrocatalytic materials for bactericidal application in this chapter, which would be helpful to design and fabricate high-efficiency photoelectrodes for photoelectrocatalytic water disinfection. Further, the challenges and opportunities of photoelectrocatalytic materials for bactericidal application are also discussed and prospected in this chapter.
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Advances in Photocatalytic Disinfection
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Other environmental sciences not elsewhere classified