Efficient and environmentally friendly purification of wastewaters from toxic pollutants is a serious challenge both for science and industry. One of the most promising approach consists in photocatalytically-driven chemical degradation of organic pollutants to form nontoxic gases. High efficiency is achieved when photocatalyst is used in a form of a fine powder. However, it gives rise to a new problem related to filtration and separation of photocatalyst particles from water that is being purified. We demonstrate how involvement of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) in preparation of photocatalytically-active materials in various configurations, e.g. PDMS as a host for embedding for photocatalyst particles, impervious or porous PDMS as a carrier for surface-mounted photocatalyst, or PDMS chemically bonded to photocatalyst in a form of a thin coating can help to overcome limitations of powder photocatalyst and increase the efficiency of photocatalysis. The whole range of native properties of PDMS such as optical transparency, ease of fabrication and fine-tuning of the base properties of material, chemical stability, ecological friendliness among others makes PDMS superior when compared to other candidates for fabrication of photocatalyst composites.

从有毒污染物中高效，环保地净化废水对科学和工业而言都是严峻的挑战。最有前途的方法之一是光催化驱动的有机污染物的化学降解，以形成无毒气体。当以细粉形式使用光催化剂时，可获得高效率。但是，这引起了与从被纯化的水中过滤和分离光催化剂颗粒有关的新问题。我们展示了聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）如何参与各种配置的光催化活性材料的制备，例如，PDMS作为嵌入光催化剂颗粒的主体，不渗透或多孔的PDMS作为表面安装的光催化剂的载体，或以薄涂层形式化学键合到光催化剂上的PDMS可以帮助克服粉末光催化剂的局限性并提高光催化效率。与制造光催化剂复合材料的其他候选材料相比，PDMS的所有固有特性（例如光学透明性，易于制造和材料基本特性的微调，化学稳定性，生态友好性等）使PDMS更具优势。