Sunlight Catalysis for Environment Treatment

At the early of the 1980s, research on sunlight catalysis to treat the environment issues was conducted, focusing on the ultraviolet light among the applied man-made light sources with which the effect was obvious, but higher in energy consumption and cost. Therefore, researchers at home and abroad proposed to integrate the solar energy with environmental protection and to develop the sunlight catalysis and degradation technologies to treat the environmental pollution.

The US took the lead in conducting the experiment. They pumped the groundwater to the ground, which was seriously polluted by trichlorethylene, adding with TiO₂ powder catalyzer. By taking advantage of trough parabolic mirror to concentrate sunlight, the light catalysis reaction was conducted when the sewage was flowing through the glass tube fixed on the focal point, resulting that the concentration of trichlorethylene in water declined from 180ppb to 0.6ppb while the drinking water standard in the US was 6ppb. This was the typical example to successfully treat the sewage by light catalysis technologies in the world. At present, there are many undergoing environmental treatment projects by utilization of catalysis and degradation technologies, including catalysis removal of toxic matter in the air, degradation of organic contamination and metal contamination in the sewage, deep treatment of drinking water.

Experimental research on catalysis technologies has also been conducted in China for the environment treatment. Results are achieved.