ABSTRACT

Among the various semiconductor photocatalysts reported so far, TiO₂ is still the most promising material for real applications because of its excellent chemical and thermal stability, non-toxicity, low cost and highly oxidising photogenerated holes. This review summarises the recent progress (mainly over the last five years) in photocatalytic oxidation of non-biodegradable organic pollutants (chlorophenols) and reduction of toxic heavy metal ions in aqueous solution. The review details the recently developed strategies for improving the performance of TiO₂-based photocatalysts, with particular respect to the visible light activity, charge separation efficiency, stability, separability and adsorption capacity for the remediation of the aforementioned categories of water contaminants, as these factors heavily affect the practical application of this technology. Next, the underlying semiconductor photocatalytic mechanisms have been thoroughly addressed experimentally and theoretically, together with the proposed defect engineering to improve the photocatalytic performance. Finally, the prospect of TiO₂ photocatalysis was discussed.

摘要

在迄今为止报道的各种半导体光催化剂中，TiO ₂凭借其优异的化学和热稳定性、无毒、低成本和高氧化性光生空穴等优点，仍然是最有前途的实际应用材料。本综述总结了光催化氧化不可生物降解的有机污染物（氯酚）和减少水溶液中有毒重金属离子的最新进展（主要是过去五年）。该评论详细介绍了最近开发的提高 TiO ₂性能的策略基光催化剂，特别是在可见光活性、电荷分离效率、稳定性、可分离性和吸附能力方面对上述类别的水污染物的修复，因为这些因素严重影响了该技术的实际应用。接下来，已经在实验和理论上彻底解决了潜在的半导体光催化机制，以及提出的缺陷工程以提高光催化性能。最后，讨论了TiO ₂光催化的前景。