Beyond photocatalytic environmental remediation: Novel TiO₂ materials and applications

Environmental applications of photocatalysis using TiO₂ have attracted an enormous amount of research interest over the last three decades [1-4]. It is well established that slurries of TiO₂ illuminated with UV light can degrade to the point of mineralization almost any dissolved organic pollutant. Nevertheless, photocatalysis, particularly in aqueous media, has still not found widespread commercial implementation for environmental remediation. The main hurdle appears to be cost, which is high enough to prevent the displacement of existing and competing technologies by photocatalysis.