Síntesis de Nuevos Nanosistemas Basados en Óxidos de Titanio con Aplicaciones Avanzadas

Abstract

The alarming increase in pollution has had a strong impact on the environment in recent decades. The large number of aquatic ecosystems affected by industrialisation and the domestic waste continuously dumped into it make it necessary to create clean and alternative sources for their decontamination and disinfection. In this context, the heterogeneous photocatalysis (Figure 1), an advanced oxidation process (AOP) that allows the degradation and mineralisation of organic pollutants through the excitation of a semiconductor by the effect of incident light, is of particular importance. This light must have an energy value equal to or greater than the energy difference between the valence and conduction bands (band gap) of the photocatalyst, thus producing an excitation that generates electron-hole pairs capable of migrating to its surface and reacting with the species adsorbed on it.