Recent advances in the TiO2 based photoreactors for removing contaminants of emerging concern in water

Abstract

Titanium oxide (TiO2) has been extensively investigated for environmental applications and has recently emerged as a promising candidate for contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) remediation. Up to date, a remarkable advance has been achieved in CEC removal using TiO2-based photoreactors; still, this application remains at the laboratory or pilot scale due to the complex parameters involved in scaling up and making it far from industrialization. Additionally, a comprehensive review of the scale-up design factors on continuous TiO2- based photoreactors for CECs removal remained scarce. This review elucidated state of the art for CEC removal performance in recent research, including endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs), pharmaceutical-activated compounds (PhACs), and pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) removal, describing the progress in TiO2 based photoreactors. Additionally, this review highlighted the key influencing factors for CEC removal using TiO2-based photocatalysts, including the operating parameters, types of photoreactors, and photoreactor geometries. Moreover, the enhancement of CEC removal via kinetics and modeling strategies in photoreactor design was emphasized in this review. Finally, the emerging challenges and new perspectives of TiO2-based photoreactor systems for CEC removal were discussed for future research advancement.