TiO2 hybrid photocatalytic systems: impact of adsorption and photocatalytic performance

Abstract

Abstract For the past 40 years, titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) nanomaterials have attracted immense attention because of their potential applications in the photodegradation of organic pollutants, photocatalytic water splitting for H 2 generation, and dye-sensitized solar cells. Despite the fact that the potential applications of TiO 2 nanoparticles are ubiquitous, they are not problem free, examples include a large interfacial area that causes slow charge carrier transport, a wide optical band gap that leads to limited applications using solar light, and single-phase and nanoscales features that induce fast recombination of photo-reduced carriers. Therefore, this review highlights the development associated with the adsorption photocatalysis hybrid system for treating wastewater. The immobilization of TiO 2 photocatalysts in metal oxide, carbon, and ceramic materials to form TiO 2 hybrid systems could prevent the problem of particle recovery, adsorption capacity, and the separation process. Such hybrid systems require significant effort of optimizing the specific surface area-to-volume ratio of the supported photocatalysts with its photocatalytic activities.