Design of New Functional Titanium Oxide-Based Photocatalysts for Degradation of Organics Diluted in Water and Air

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is ideally most promising photocatalyst for degradation of organic compounds under environmentally benign conditions. For further exploitation of its catalytic properties, some strategies to improve adsorption of organic substrates by hybridization with various support materials have become important. This article reviews recent developments in designing TiO2 photocatalyst with the objective of fabricating efficient photodegradation systems toward organic compounds diluted in water and air. We highlight that the hydrophobic support materials can offer significant enhancement in photodegradation, where adsorption properties of organics onto TiO2 surface play much more dominant role than other structural and compositional factors in photocatalysis of TiO2.