Photocatalytic reactor design for environmental applications is a major challenging task in heterogeneous photocatalysis because all the three components involved in the process are in different phases: pollutant - fluid, catalyst – solid and light photons - massless particles. Heterogeneity of photocatalysis makes the reactor design highly inter-disciplinary involving the knowledge of chemical, mechanical and environmental engineering concepts. So far literatures have focused on optimizing process parameters for specific pollutants, but the holistic approach in designing a photocatalytic reactor has been unclear. This article reviews about all types of photocatalytic reactors and compares them with calculated five benchmarks: Apparent reaction rate constant (k), Space time yield (STY), Photocatalytic space time yield (PSTY), Specific removal rate (SRR), Electrical energy consumption (EEC). It is interpreted that in designing a photocatalytic reactor, four important aspects are to be considered: Throughput, Performance, Energy efficiency, Cost. This review article calculates the above said 5 benchmarks for 24 reactor designs and highlights the important parameters to build an effective photocatalytic reactor.

在非均相光催化中，用于环境应用的光催化反应器设计是一项艰巨的挑战性任务，因为该过程涉及的所有三个成分都处于不同的阶段：污染物-流体，催化剂-固体和轻质光子-无质量粒子。光催化的非均质性使反应器设计具有很高的跨学科性，涉及化学，机械和环境工程概念的知识。迄今为止，文献集中在优化特定污染物的工艺参数上，但是设计光催化反应器的整体方法尚不清楚。本文介绍了所有类型的光催化反应器，并将它们与计算出的五个基准进行了比较：表观反应速率常数（k），时空产率（STY），光催化时空产率（PSTY），比去除率（SRR），电能消耗（EEC）。据解释，在设计光催化反应器时，应考虑四个重要方面：吞吐量，性能，能效，成本。这篇评论文章针对24种反应器设计计算了上述5个基准，并重点介绍了构建有效的光催化反应器的重要参数。