Green and Eco-Friendly Synthesis of Nanophotocatalysts: An Overview

Abstract

Nanophotocatalysts have numerous applications in the field of water splitting, dissociation of volatile organic pollutants, organic synthesis, degradation of dyes/hazardous contaminants, cancer cells inactivation, self-cleaning surfaces, hydrogen evolution, photo-electrochemical conversion, etc. Typically, to produce nanophotocatalysts, diverse conventional physicochemical strategies have been reported with some important drawbacks/limitations such as the utilization of toxic/hazardous materials, complex/expensive instruments, and time-consuming reactions. Therefore, there is a high demand for developing green, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective synthetic tactics, which can reduce or eliminate the rigorousness and complications of the conventional approaches. These nanophotocatalysts have shown high stability, good recyclability, and remarkable catalytic activity. Typically, the significant specific surface areas, the abundant functional groups, large amounts of active sites are the important advantages of the nanoscaled structures for highly photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants. However, more elaborative studies are still needed to overcome some important limitations/drawbacks of nanophotocatalysts for industrial applications, which include the difficult separation, low selectivity, aggregation/sedimentation, low-usage of visible light, fast charge recombination, and low migration potential of photo-generated electrons and holes. This review highlights recent advances related to the greener and eco-friendly synthesis of nanophotocatalysts, as well as their environmental photocatalytic applications.