Progress in the study of heteropolyacid-based-nanocomposite photocatalytic materials

Abstract As a kind of mild green photocatalysts, Heteropoly acid have a good prospect in photocatalysis due to its high activity, good selectivity and non-toxicityand possess photochemical characteristics similar to those of the semiconductor photocatalysts. Heteropoly acid (HPA), which are very soluble in water and polar solvents, these compounds are activated only by UV light, which restricts the practical application of HPA. Dispersing HPA onto nanoparticle supports with high surface area is useful to increase their specific surface area and hence (photo)catalytic activity. In this paper, the application of HPA-nanoparticles composites such as HPA/TiO2 nanoparticles composites, HPA/SiO2 nanoparticles composites, HPA/ZrO2 nanoparticles composites and so on, in photocatalytic degradation of printing and dyeing wastewater, and the future research direction is prospected.