Gas purification by heterogeneous photocatalysis

B. SÁNCHEZ; A. I. CARDONA; J. PERAL; M. I. LITTER

Waste Gas Treatment for Resource Recovery

Año: 2006; p. 195 - 225

Heterogeneous photocatalysis for the elimination of VOCs is based on theoxidation of these undesirable airborne compounds, using a semiconductorcatalyst activated by light from a certain wavelength. Therefore, the componentsnecessary for a photocatalytic reaction to take place are a compound to bedegraded, an oxidizing compound such as oxygen contained in the air, amedium where the reaction takes place (in this case air itself), a photocatalystsuch as titanium dioxide or other semiconductor compound, and a source ofultraviolet light whether natural (sunlight, in photoreactors configured as solarcollectors) or artificial (lamps: mercury, xenon, black lights, UVA, etc.).