The roles of hydroxyl radicals, photo-generated holes and oxygen in the photocatalytic degradation of humic acid

This article is aimed at studying on the roles of the hydroxyl radicals, photo-generated holes, and oxygen in the photocatalytic degradation of humic acid (HA) in acid and alkaline conditions. The results indicate that hydroxyl radicals’ scavenger alone can inhibit the photocatalytic degradation process completely in alkaline condition, which implies that photo-generated holes cannot directly degrade the organic matter in alkaline condition. Moreover, the reaction sites between hydroxyl radicals and HA is on the TiO 2 surface in acid condition. But in alkaline condition, hydroxyl radicals diffuse and react with HA in the solution. The generation of hydroxyl radicals almost stops and the photocatalytic degradation is inhibited seriously without oxygen, which illustrates that oxygen plays an important role in the photocatalytic degradation of HA.