Use of clays and pillared clays in the catalytic photodegradation of organic compounds in aqueous solutions

ABSTRACTABSTRACTConventional wastewater treatment plants do not currently remove all organic compounds, including some emerging pollutants. This has prompted several efforts to develop new methods and materials—or to improve existing ones—to remove such pollutants. The technologies studied to remove contaminants from water include photochemical processes in which the photons activate a material to produce radicals, which go on to initiate a series of reactions that result in oxidation of the pollutant. Several photocatalysts and catalyst supports have been used; these include clays and pillared interlayered clays (PILC), which have shown interesting results in the photodegradation of several organic contaminants. In this review, we describe the studies that have used both clays and PILC for the photodegradation of organic compounds in aqueous solutions. The results reported are summarized and compared, thus confirming that the findings support the use of these systems as photocatalysts and that they are successful and promising materials for the removal of several organic compounds. In this aspect, new synthesis procedures for PILC materials can be proposed from Heterostructures and MOF based on clays.KEYWORDS: PhotodegradationUV lightVIS lightsunlightphotocatalystsclayspillared claysTiO2photocatalyst supports AcknowledgmentsThe authors are grateful for financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) through project PID2020-112656RB-C21. YC thanks the Universidad Pública de Navarra for a pre-doctoral grant (IberusTalent, European Union's H2020 research and innovation program under Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement N° 801586). AG also thanks Banco Santander for funding via the Research Intensification Program.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).