Nanostructured and nanocomposite materials for environmental photocatalysis

Lucia CURRI, CNR - IPCF

Catalysis and, in particular, photocatalysis by nanostructured materials is an increasingly active area of research all over the world, and the growth rate appears to be very high due also to increasing concerns regarding future energy security and environmental sustainability.

Indeed, in the decades, with the worldwide growing population and the consequent growing demand of clean water resources, mankind is going to face serious issues regarding the decontamination of water from a series of pollutants. An even heavier situation has already been tackled with the air pollution. The development of cost-effective and stable materials, methods and technology for providing the fresh water in adequate amounts and clean air is a critical need for environmental protection.

Improvement in performance have been strongly correlated to advances in nanotechnology. It is expected that both the technological and economic importance of photocatalytic materials can increase considerably in the future.

The recent advances in the control of nanoscale materials and in the investigation of photocatalytic processes envision new scenario for nanoscience-inspired design, synthesis, and formulation of industrially relevant catalytic materials.

In this perspective, the contribution will deal with the advances recently observed in the synthesis of different catalytically active nanoparticles (NPs), with peculiar size dependent optoelectronic and catalytic properties, also coupled or doped with relevant compounds, with controlled size, shape, and multifunctional nanocomposites, also hybrid in nature, provide a flexible and versatile tools to access an innovative class of multifunctional materials with superior photocatalytic properties in the UV and visible range.

In addition, realization and control of composite particle architecture over multiple length scales are fundamental for catalyst scale-up and large-scale manufacturing as well as for their exploitation in specific chemical processes, including design and realization of advanced reactors based on properly fabricated reusable and recoverable catalysts.

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