Photocatalytic water purification using planar microreactor

In this paper, the experimental studies utilize the photoelectrocatalytic effect to eliminate another fundamental limit of photocatalysis - the recombination of photo-excited electrons and holes. Two transparent ITO glass slides are used as eletrodes and both the positive and negative bias potentials are applied across the reaction chamber. It turns out that the negative bias always exhibits higher performance. Under -1.8 V, the degradation rate is independent of the residence time, showing that the accompanying electrolysis can solve the problem of oxygen deficiency. Synergetic effect of photocatalysis and electrocatalysis is observed to reach the maximum under the bias potential of ± 1.5 V.