Chemical modifications of nanostructured titania-based materials in photocatalytic decomposition/conversion of various organic pollutants: A short review

Titanium dioxide, as environmental (decontamination) photocatalyst, is increasingly gaining importance in the removal of organic pollutants from water and air, as well. Different methods can be used for obtaining TiO2 catalyst, but sol-gel and hydrother­mal methods are most commonly used for the synthesis and modification of TiO2. The properties of nanostructured materials such as crystal phase, surface features and electronic structures can be changed with doping. In this paper, the influence of Fe and Zn as dopants on the physico-chemical properties of TiO2 catalyst will be presented based on the reported literature data. Usually applied instrumental tech­niques for the materials characterizations are X-ray diffraction (XRD), SEM, TEM, FTIR and UV-vis spectroscopy. The removal efficiency of various organic pollutants (organic dyes, antibiotics, pesticides, xenobiotics) is determined by the characteristics and dosage of the catalyst, nature and initial concentration of pollutants.