Enhanced antibacterial performance in water over the nanostructured heterojunction photocatalysts: A review

Water pollution, especially by microorganisms and bacteria, is a serious threat to human health. Traditional water disinfection methods are limited by safety and efficiency; therefore, developing simple and environmentally friendly technology with high activity, good stability and low energy consumption for water treatment is necessary. Solar photocatalysis can meet the aforementioned requirements and is convenient and advantageous for realizing efficient disinfection and bacterial inactivation with low economic consumption. For practical applications, the sterilization efficiency of photocatalytic technology must be effectively improved. This review summarizes the ongoing researches focusing on the development of antibacterial photocatalysts with different nanostructured configurations, including zero-dimensional (0D)/one-dimensional (1D), 0D/two-dimensional (2D), 1D/2D, and 2D/2D, for water disinfection. These nanostructured photocatalysts with optimized photocarrier separation efficiency and rich active sites displayed superior bacterial inactivation performance compared to their bulk counterparts. Moreover, emphasis has been placed on the factors (semiconductor compositions, interface design between the components and charge separation mode) affecting the photocatalytic antibacterial activity. Finally, we highlighted potential problems and countermeasures for the development of nanostructured photocatalysts in the fields of water disinfection.