Research Progress in the Development and Application of Photocatalysis Technology and Materials

Abstract

In recent years, photocatalytic technology has become a research hotspot for the treatment of organic wastewater, uranium containing wastewater, and Cr (VI) containing wastewater due to its advantages of environmental friendliness, simple reaction process, and high degradation efficiency. Uranium, as the main component of nuclear fuel, is an important strategic resource. The separation and enrichment technology of uranium is of great significance for the sustainable development of nuclear energy. Previously, a series of solid adsorption materials for uranium extraction have been developed, such as inorganic minerals, mesoporous silica, magnetic nanomaterials, carbon based materials, and advanced porous materials. However, due to the comprehensive performance of stability, removal kinetics, adsorption capacity, selectivity, and reusability, the practical application of these materials is still inevitably limited. And photocatalytic technology can reduce easily soluble and easily flowing U (VI) to more difficult to dissolve and relatively non flowing U (IV), thus overcoming the above problems and achieving the reduction and fixation of uranium. Moreover, this technology only relies on inexhaustible solar energy as energy source, and has the advantage of green and clean. Therefore, the use of photocatalytic technology to separate and enrich uranium is of great significance for the sustainable development of nuclear energy. However, most semiconductor photocatalysts have shortcomings in terms of light absorption capacity and charge separation ability, which limits their practical application in wastewater treatment. In addition, there are many difficulties in photocatalytic treatment of wastewater, such as the fast recombination speed of photo generated electron hole pairs generated by the catalyst, the weak visible light response of most single semiconductor materials, the need to introduce additional sacrificial agents to capture holes in the reaction, and the introduction of inert gases to eliminate the interference of oxygen. This article provides a certain scientific basis for expanding the application of various photocatalytic technologies in wastewater treatment.