Photocatalysis provides a "green" and effective strategy for water disinfection. During the photocatalytic disinfection process, intracellular organic matter (IOM) from bacterial cells may be released into the bulk solution. In this study, the role of released IOM in the photocatalytic bacterial inactivation was investigated by fractionation procedure and fluorescence excitation-emission-matrix...

The photocatalytic activity and stability of thin, polycrystalline ZnO films was studied. The oxidative degradation of organic compounds at the ZnO surface results from the ultraviolet (UV) photo-induced creation of highly oxidizing holes and reducing electrons, which combine with surface water to form hydroxyl radicals and reactive oxygen species. Therefore, the efficiency of the electron-hole...

Photocatalysis has attracted worldwide attention due to its potential in solar energy conversion. As a "green" advanced oxidation technology, it has been extensively used for water disinfection and wastewater treatment. This article provides a review of the recent progress in solar energy-induced photocatalytic disinfection of bacteria, focusing on the development of highly efficient photocatal...

Development of efficient, robust and earth-abundant water oxidation catalysts (WOCs) is extremely desirable for water splitting by electrolysis or photocatalysis. Herein, we report cobalt oxide nanoparticles anchored on the surface of sulfonated graphite (denoted as “CoOx@G-Ph-SN”) to exhibit unexpectedly efficient water oxidation activity with a turnover frequency (TOF) of 1.2 s ; two or three...

In this study, a dual rotating-disk photocatalytic fuel cell using TiO2 on Ti plate with a wedged surface as the anode and hemoglobin (Hb) on graphite as the cathode was investigated and found to show excellent performance of simultaneous organic pollutant degradation and electricity generation. This study is based on a well-developed photocatalytic fuel cell equipped with dual rotating disks f...

Hydrogen is being intensively investigated as a new energy carrier that stores and transports energy obtained from renewable energy resources (e.g., solar and wind power) to the point of use. In particular, efficient methods that can convert solar energy into hydrogen are being actively sought. One of the ideal methods is solar hydrogen production from water splitting that can be driven by phot...

In this study titanium dioxide nanotube (TNT) arrays were prepared by an anodic oxidation process with post-calcination. The morphology and structure of the TNT films were studied by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Photocatalytic activity of the TNT films was evaluated in terms of the degradation of 2,3-di...

This work reports on the construction of a Bi24O31Cl10/BiOCl heterojunction via a simple thermal annealing method. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) results indicated that the phase transformation from BiOCl to Bi24O31Cl10 could be realized during the thermal annealing process. The high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) binding energy s...

Commercial α-Al2O3 photocatalytic membranes with a pore size of 200 and 800-nm were coated with N-doped TiO2 photocatalytic film using a sol-gel technique for concurrent bottom-up filtration and photocatalytic oxidation. X-ray diffraction confirmed that the deposited N-doped TiO2 films are in the form of anatase with 78-84% coverage of the membrane surface. The concentration of N found by X-ray...

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) displays photocatalytic behavior under near-ultraviolet (UV) illumination. In another scientific field, it is well understood that the excitation of localized plasmon polaritons on the surface of silver (Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) causes a tremendous increase of the near-field amplitude at well-defined wavelengths in the near UV. The exact resonance wavelength depends on th...