A review of the photocatalysis process used for wastewater treatment

Abstract

Large industries have been established as a result of society's urbanization and huge technological breakthroughs, such as the agricultural, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, or biotechnology industries. The majority of these businesses consume a substantial amount of water, which is then turned into wastewater after the manufacturing process. Consequently, a large amount of this wastewater is difficult to treat due to wide variation in the composition of waste like dyes, pharmaceutical waste, organic contents, residual contaminants, hazardous and inhibitory substances, etc. Conventional wastewater treatment methods have been challenged as a result and are increasingly failing to satisfy the required criteria. Photocatalysis for wastewater treatment is a new area of research that has a promising future for the treatment of a variety of wastes. Specifically, effluents containing toxic and refractory organics that are resistant to treatment with conventional techniques. The goal of this review article is to explain the most recent research in the field of nano-photocatalysis for the treatment of wastewater, as well as previous work. The future possibilities of this emerging area are also highlighted in this study, such as the lack of defined standards for assessing the efficacy of various photocatalysts for wastewater treatment. In addition to laboratory studies, more pilot and field-scale investigations are required to find out economic benefits. The knowledge in this review should be used by researchers to produce high-efficiency, low-cost nano-photocatalysts for wastewater treatment.