Recent advances of bismuth titanate based photocatalysts engineering for enhanced organic contaminates oxidation in water: A review

Over more than three decades, the scientific community has been contentiously interested in structuring varying photocatalytic materials with unique properties for appropriate technology transfer. Most of the existing reported photocatalysts in the literature show pros and cons by considering the type of application and working conditions. Bismuth titanate oxides (BTO) are novel photocatalysts that raised recently towards energy and environmental-related applications. Most recent advances to developing bismuth titanate-based photocatalysts for the oxidation of organic pollutants in the water phase were reviewed in this report. To counter the potential drawbacks of BTO materials, i.e., rapid recombination of photoproduced charges, and further promote the photoactivity, most reported approaches were discussed, including creating direct Z-scheme junctions, conventional heterojunctions, metal/non-metal doping, coupling with carbon materials, surface modification and construction of oxygen vacancies. In the end, the review addresses the future trends for better engineering and application of BTO based photocatalysts towards the photodegradation of organic pollutants in water under controlled lab and large scales conditions.