Recent Progress, Mechanisms, and Purification Efficiencies of Photocatalytic Wastewater Treatment

Abstract

Environmental pollution is one of the most serious problems facing human civilization in recent years. These pollutants encompass a range of chemical substances that are frequently challenging for nature to naturally degrade and offer substantial risks and harm to the environment as well as human health. The majority of pollutants are extremely harmful, can cause cancer, and can harm the liver, kidneys, and even the brain. It is important to remove these pollutants from water and wastewater as they are extremely harmful to aquatic organisms. Wastewater containing dye has traditionally been treated using techniques like precipitation, filtration, and adsorption. However, they might not be sufficient to totally eliminate the resulting pollutants because they are not intended to particularly break down micro-pollutants. Most recently, pollutants have been removed from water using a variety of approaches, including sorption processes, filtration, catalytic oxidation, combination processes, carbon adsorption, flocculation, activated sludge processes, and photocatalysis. Many of these techniques cannot completely remove their contaminants and require expensive raw materials. The photocatalysis method has been acknowledged as a promising green method for environmental cleanup since it uses photocatalytic materials along with solar energy that is renewable. Photocatalysis gives the opportunity to completely remove pollutants in water by converting them into harmless or less harmful species. This chapter is about the working mechanism of photocatalysis technique, which is very important in removing pollutants from water and wastewater, and the recent advances in photocatalytic treatment. © 2025 by Apple Academic Press, Inc.