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Application of Photocatalytic Technology in Environmental Sustainability
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Application of Photocatalytic Technology in Environmental Sustainability

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 September 2023) | Viewed by 2850

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Tünde Alapi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Environmental Sciences, University of Szeged, Pf. 653, H-6701 Szeged, Hungary
Interests: photochemistry; materials chemistry; water treatment; photocatalysts; UV radiation; photolysis; TiO2
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Photocatalytic technology converts photon energy into chemical energy, thus helping establish new methods and technologies to protect our environment. Photocatalysis is based on the application of semiconductors able to initiate redox reactions via the generation and separation of electron-hole pairs due to the absorption of photons having adequate energy. These charges escaped from the recombination can function as the reducing and oxidizing agents, respectively, and are used to eliminate organic and inorganic pollutants in waters and air. Although thousands of papers have been published in this field, many unanswered questions have remained.

Further development of photocatalytic processes and photocatalysts is required for their application at an industrial scale. The efficiency of these methods can be improved in various ways, such as synthesizing highly efficient photocatalysts and combining different semiconductors to enhance the generation and separation of charge carriers, applying the combination of photocatalysis with other advanced oxidation processes, developing a new design of photoreactors. In addition, a more thorough understanding of photocatalytic processes is part of developing methods, especially for interpreting the effects of components present in a matrix.

This Special Issue aims to collect quality papers about applying photocatalytic technology to environmental sustainability, focusing on applying new materials as a photocatalyst, developing reactor design, and combining photocatalytic technology with other processes. Studies concerning synthesis methods of new photocatalysts and testing them in their application relating to environmental sustainability, especially in real matrices, are also welcome.

I am pleased to invite you to submit manuscripts for this Special Issue on " Application of Photocatalytic Technology in Environmental Sustainability.” We look forward to your participation in this Special Issue of Materials. Full papers, communications, and reviews are all welcome.

Prof. Dr. Tünde Alapi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 5332 KiB  
Article
Comparison of TiO2 and ZnO for Heterogeneous Photocatalytic Activation of the Peroxydisulfate Ion in Trimethoprim Degradation
by Máté Náfrádi, Tünde Alapi, Bence Veres, Luca Farkas, Gábor Bencsik and Csaba Janáky
Materials 2023, 16(17), 5920; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16175920 - 29 Aug 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1098
Abstract
The persulfate-based advanced oxidation process is a promising method for degrading organic pollutants. Herein, TiO2 and ZnO photocatalysts were combined with the peroxydisulfate ion (PDS) to enhance the efficiency. ZnO was significantly more efficient in PDS conversion and SO4•− generation [...] Read more.
The persulfate-based advanced oxidation process is a promising method for degrading organic pollutants. Herein, TiO2 and ZnO photocatalysts were combined with the peroxydisulfate ion (PDS) to enhance the efficiency. ZnO was significantly more efficient in PDS conversion and SO4•− generation than TiO2. For ZnO, the PDS increased the transformation rate of the trimethoprim antibiotic from 1.58 × 10−7 M s−1 to 6.83 × 10−7 M s−1. However, in the case of TiO2, the moderated positive effect was manifested mainly in O2-free suspensions. The impact of dissolved O2 and trimethoprim on PDS transformation was also studied. The results reflected that the interaction of O2, PDS, and TRIM with the surface of the photocatalyst and their competition for photogenerated charges must be considered. The effect of radical scavengers confirmed that in addition to SO4•−, •OH plays an essential role even in O2-free suspensions, and the contribution of SO4•− to the transformation is much more significant for ZnO than for TiO2. The negative impact of biologically treated domestic wastewater as a matrix was manifested, most probably because of the radical scavenging capacity of Cl− and HCO3−. Nevertheless, in the case of ZnO, the positive effect of PDS successfully overcompensates that, due to the efficient SO4•− generation. Reusability tests were performed in Milli-Q water and biologically treated domestic wastewater, and only a slight decrease in the reactivity of ZnO photocatalysts was observed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of Photocatalytic Technology in Environmental Sustainability)
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14 pages, 4200 KiB  
Article
Investigating the Effect of Reflectance Tuning on Photocatalytic Dye Degradation with Biotemplated ZnO Photonic Nanoarchitectures Based on Morpho Butterfly Wings
by Gábor Piszter, Gergely Nagy, Krisztián Kertész, Zsófia Baji, Krisztina Kovács, Zsolt Bálint, Zsolt Endre Horváth, József Sándor Pap and László Péter Biró
Materials 2023, 16(9), 3584; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16093584 - 07 May 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1456
Abstract
Photonic nanoarchitectures of butterfly wings can serve as biotemplates to prepare semiconductor thin films of ZnO by atomic layer deposition. The resulting biotemplated ZnO nanoarchitecture preserves the structural and optical properties of the natural system, while it will also have the features of [...] Read more.
Photonic nanoarchitectures of butterfly wings can serve as biotemplates to prepare semiconductor thin films of ZnO by atomic layer deposition. The resulting biotemplated ZnO nanoarchitecture preserves the structural and optical properties of the natural system, while it will also have the features of the functional material. The ZnO-coated wings can be used directly in heterogeneous photocatalysis to decompose pollutants dissolved in water upon visible light illumination. We used the photonic nanoarchitectures of different Morpho butterflies with different structural colors as biotemplates and examined the dependence of decomposition rates of methyl orange and rhodamine B dyes on the structural color of the biotemplates and the thickness of the ZnO coating. Using methyl orange, we measured a ten-fold increase in photodegradation rate when the 20 nm ZnO-coated wings were compared to similarly coated glass substrates. Using rhodamine B, a saturating relationship was found between the degradation rate and the thickness of the deposited ZnO on butterfly wings. We concluded that the enhancement of the catalytic efficiency can be attributed to the slow light effect due to a spectral overlap between the ZnO-coated Morpho butterfly wings reflectance with the absorption band of dyes, thus the photocatalytic performance could be changed by the tuning of the structural color of the butterfly biotemplates. The photodegradation mechanism of the dyes was investigated by liquid chromatography–mass spectroscopy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of Photocatalytic Technology in Environmental Sustainability)
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