Photocatalytic Treatment of Waters

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Abstract
The increasingly clear need for new and effective methods for cleaning polluted air and water streams has recently resulted in a renewed interest in developing environmentally benign methods for detoxification, possibly by complete mineralization of a wide range of organic compounds. The most currently used methods for cleaning liquid or gaseous streams involve stoichiometric chemical treatment with oxidizing reagents, usually either chlorine or ozone to oxidatively degrade the organic contaminant. Although the chemical treatments employed in these methods are well known, they are limited in effectiveness in attaining only incomplete purification and by the need for large quantities of the oxidizing reagent consumed in the operation. The possibility that improved detoxification might result, possibly with lower cost, by using other methods for this oxidative cleanup is therefore particularly appealing. Several of these new methods, called in aggregate “advanced oxidation processes,” 1 employ a high-energy source to induce chemical redox reactivity in a range of organic pollutants. For example, both high energy-electron beam irradiation 2 and ultraviolet (UV) light photoexcitation have been suggested as possible energy sources to initiate chemical reactions that attack and ultimately destroy undesirable components of air or water mixtures.

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