Pollutants removal from saline water by solar photocatalysis: a review of experimental and theoretical approaches

ABSTRACT

Photocatalysis is playing a vital role for the treatment of recalcitrant pollutants present in water streams. Solar photocatalysis is an environmental friendly and cost-effective technology. Various research works have been reported on the development of novel photocatalysts and the enhancement of their photocatalytic activity. Efforts were being made to apply solar photocatalysis for the removal of pollutants from saline water and industrial saline wastewater. Researchers carried out experimental studies with different reactor configurations such as batch studies, batch recirculation studies, and continuous flow studies with photocatalysts in suspension or photocatalysts in immobilised thin-film systems. The performance of the photocatalytic process was mostly evaluated through percentage removal efficiencies of various parameters such as chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD) and total organic carbon (TOC). Experimental runs were optimised using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) techniques. This work is a comprehensive review on the application of solar photocatalysis for the treatment of pollutants present in saline water and industrial saline wastewater. It briefly examines the latest advances in both experimental and theoretical approaches, probing the novel techniques. Finally, this review concludes with current challenges and new directions in this emerging area of research.

KEYWORDS:

• Solar photocatalysis
• saline water
• water treatment
• industrialsaline wastewater
• photocatalysts
• photo-Fenton process

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

The authors do not have any conflict of interest in this research work.