Nano-based materials for photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants

Due to industrialization, population growth, and urbanization, the global environmental issues, especially the organic pollutants in industrial and household wastewater, have become a great threat to human life and environment in the recent decades [1-4]. An effective solution for confront with these problems is the use of method, which not only can relieve these problems, but also reduce the effluent discharge into the ecosystem. Among various methods that have been used for this regard, photocatalytic degradation as a cheap, available, clean and green purification technology in wastewater treatment process has always been considered. Therefore, application of nano-based materials for photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants due to impressive properties of nanomaterial s in terms of high specific surface area, high surface free energy, sufficient reactive sites, fast dissolution, and various discontinuous properties (e.g. superparamagnetism, localized surface plasmon resonance, and quantum confinement effect) can enhance and improve the efficiency of photocatalytic degradation based methods for treatment and removal of organic pollutants from wastewater and environment [5-8].