Development of Nanomaterials as Photo Catalysts for Environmental Applications

Lack of environmental sustainability is a growing and pivotal matter due to the issues such as disturbances associated with biodiversity pollution and climate change. Pollutants are the major cause of these environmental threats in the atmosphere. At present, nano-based photocatalysts are at the forefront of the author's interest because of their promising potential as a green chemical-based compound, high catalytic activity, suitable and controllable surface area for wastewater treatment. Semiconductor materials on a nano-sized scale have electronic and optical properties depending on their building block size, which plays a vital role in developing smart materials that are well-efficient for simultaneously destroying harmful chemical contaminants from our environment. This makes these materials useful in many possible industrial applications, such as water purification. In this review, we have reported the most significant results contributing to the progress in the area of environmental hazardous pollutant detection and removal focused on water purification especially through photocatalysis to give readers an overview of the present research trends. Moreover, we have analyzed previous studies to indicate key principles of photocatalysis and provide guidelines that can be used to fabricate more efficient photocatalysts.