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Disinfection of Waters/Wastewaters by Solar Photocatalysis

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Advances in Photocatalytic Disinfection

Part of the book series: Green Chemistry and Sustainable Technology ((GCST))

Abstract

A light source and a semiconducting material comprise a powerful duo that may offer several photocatalytic applications for environmental remediation; in recent years, photocatalytic disinfection based on sunlight has gained considerable attention as an efficient and sustainable technology to control the population of various microorganisms in several aqueous matrices. This chapter highlights recent developments in the field both from an engineering and a microbiological point of view. Advances in photocatalytic materials include the modification of all-time classic titania to perform better in the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as synthesize novel catalysts such as silver phosphate or robust Fenton-like materials. Measuring disinfection efficiency correctly is critical in designing proper treatment systems. Disinfection kinetics are affected by several factors including reactor configuration, the water matrix, possible synergy with other oxidation processes, the selection of the test microorganism, and, most importantly, the way the population of microorganisms is measured; the latter is crucial since disinfection efficiency can easily be overestimated. All these, alongside the mechanisms of microbial structure destruction upon photocatalytic illumination and the perspectives and constraints of process scale-up, are dealt with in this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, GR-73100, Chania, Greece

    Danae Venieri

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Patras, Caratheodory 1, GR-26504, Patras, Greece

    Dionissios Mantzavinos

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  1. Danae Venieri
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  2. Dionissios Mantzavinos
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Correspondence to Dionissios Mantzavinos .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Environmental Health and Pollution Control, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

    Taicheng An

  2. Centre for Clean Environment and Energy, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

    Huijun Zhao

  3. School of Life Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Po Keung Wong

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Venieri, D., Mantzavinos, D. (2017). Disinfection of Waters/Wastewaters by Solar Photocatalysis. In: An, T., Zhao, H., Wong, P. (eds) Advances in Photocatalytic Disinfection. Green Chemistry and Sustainable Technology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-53496-0_8

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