TY - JOUR
T1 - A Systematic Review on Solar Heterogeneous Photocatalytic Water Disinfection
T2 - Advances over Time, Operation Trends, and Prospects
AU - Silerio-Vázquez, Felipe de J.
AU - Núñez-Núñez, Cynthia M.
AU - Proal-Nájera, José B.
AU - Alarcón-Herrera, María T.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors.
PY - 2022/11
Y1 - 2022/11
N2 - Access to drinking water is a human right recognized by the United Nations. It is estimated that more than 2.1 billion people lack access to drinking water with an adequate microbiological quality, which is associated to 80% of all diseases, as well as with millions of deaths caused by infections, especially in children. Water disinfection technologies need a continuous improvement approach to meet the growing demand caused by population growth and climate change. Heterogeneous photocatalysis with semiconductors, which is an advanced oxidation process, has been proposed as a sustainable technology for water disinfection, as it does not need addition of any chemical substance and it can make use of solar light. Nevertheless, the technology has not been deployed industrially and commercially yet, mainly because of the lack of efficient reactor designs to treat large volumes of water, as most research focus on lab-scale experimentation. Additionally, very few applications are often tested employing actual sunlight. The present work provide a perspective on the operation trends and advances of solar heterogeneous photocatalytic reactors for water disinfection by systematically analyzing pertaining literature that made actual use of sunlight, with only 60 reports found out of the initially 1044 papers detected. These reports were discussed in terms of reactor employed, photocatalyst used, microorganism type, overall disinfection efficiency, and location. General prospects for the progression of the technology are provided as well.
AB - Access to drinking water is a human right recognized by the United Nations. It is estimated that more than 2.1 billion people lack access to drinking water with an adequate microbiological quality, which is associated to 80% of all diseases, as well as with millions of deaths caused by infections, especially in children. Water disinfection technologies need a continuous improvement approach to meet the growing demand caused by population growth and climate change. Heterogeneous photocatalysis with semiconductors, which is an advanced oxidation process, has been proposed as a sustainable technology for water disinfection, as it does not need addition of any chemical substance and it can make use of solar light. Nevertheless, the technology has not been deployed industrially and commercially yet, mainly because of the lack of efficient reactor designs to treat large volumes of water, as most research focus on lab-scale experimentation. Additionally, very few applications are often tested employing actual sunlight. The present work provide a perspective on the operation trends and advances of solar heterogeneous photocatalytic reactors for water disinfection by systematically analyzing pertaining literature that made actual use of sunlight, with only 60 reports found out of the initially 1044 papers detected. These reports were discussed in terms of reactor employed, photocatalyst used, microorganism type, overall disinfection efficiency, and location. General prospects for the progression of the technology are provided as well.
KW - advanced oxidation processes
KW - reactor design
KW - sunlight
KW - water potabilization
KW - water treatment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85141805593&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/catal12111314
DO - 10.3390/catal12111314
M3 - Artículo de revisión
AN - SCOPUS:85141805593
SN - 2073-4344
VL - 12
JO - Catalysts
JF - Catalysts
IS - 11
M1 - 1314
ER -