Critical review of photocatalytic disinfection of bacteria: from noble metals- and carbon nanomaterials-TiO2 composites to challenges of water characteristics and strategic solutions.

This critical review covers ways to improve TiO2-based photocatalysts, how water characteristics may affect photocatalytic disinfection, and strategies to tackle the challenges arising from water characteristics. Photocatalysis has shown much promise in the disinfection of water/wastewater, because photocatalysis does not produce toxic by-products, and is driven by green solar energy. There are however several drawbacks that are curbing the prevalence of photocatalytic disinfection applications: one, the efficiency of photocatalysts may limit popular utilization; two, the water characteristics may present some challenges to the process. TiO2-based photocatalysts may be readily improved if composited with noble metals or carbon nanomaterials. Noble metals give TiO2-based composites a higher affinity for dissolved oxygen, and induce plasmonic and Schottky effects in the TiO2; carbon nanomaterials with a tunable structure, on the other hand, give the composites an improved charge carrier separation performance. Other than photocatalyst materials, the characteristics of water/wastewater is another crucial factor in the photocatalysis process. Also examined in this review are the crucial impacts that water characteristics have on photocatalysts and their interaction with bacteria. Accordingly, strategies to address the challenge of water characteristics on photocatalytic disinfection are explored: one, to modify the semiconductor conduction band to generate long-lifetime reactive species; two, to improve the interaction between bacteria and photocatalysts.