Abstract
In order to improve the indoor air quality, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can be removed via an efficient approach by using catalysts. This review proposed a comprehensive summary of various nanomaterials for thermal/photo-catalytic removal of VOCs. These representative materials are mainly categorized as carbon-based and metallic oxides materials, and their morphologies, synthesis techniques, and performances have been explained in detail. To improve the indoor and outdoor air quality, the catalytic nanomaterials can be utilized for emerging building applications such as VOC-reduction coatings, paints, air filters, and construction materials. Due to the characteristics of low cost, non-toxic and high chemical stability, metallic oxides such as TiO2 and ZnO have been widely investigated for decades and dominate the application market of VOC-removal catalyst in buildings. Since other catalysts also showed brilliant performance and have been theoretically researched, they can be potential candidates for applications in future healthy buildings. This review will contribute to further knowledge and greater potential applications of promising VOC-reducing catalytic nanomaterials on healthier buildings for a better indoor and outdoor environment well-being.
Highlights
Healthy buildings aim to provide a healthy built environment for occupants inside buildings, and indoor air quality can significantly impact occupants’ health [1]
Most references have been reviewed based on a specific category of material, such as TiO2 [13,25,26], graphene-based materials [27], zinc indium sulphide [28] and silica-nanosphere-based materials [29] etc., or focusing on the catalytic oxidation processes in a specific situation such as low temperature [30], visible light [31,32], or based on a summary from the perspective of various volatile organic compounds (VOCs) [5]
Nitric acid causes a decrease in crystallinity and photocatalytic activity, which drops by almost 20%; and sulfuric acid is the best candidate for TiO2 nanoparticles acid treatment with the aim of improving both their reflectance in a wavelength region unaffected by aging and sustaining their photocatalytic activity over time
Summary
Healthy buildings aim to provide a healthy built environment for occupants inside buildings, and indoor air quality can significantly impact occupants’ health [1]. In order to remove the VOCs, many methods have been proposed and can be roughly divided into two main groups according to their mechanisms: adsorption techniques and oxidation techniques [5], or the combination of them [6]. The former one is a conventional method by transferring VOCs from the air to the solid phase via adsorbents, e.g., activated carbon [7], biochar [8] and fibre [9], etc.
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