Abstract:

Benzene has severe health and environmental consequences because of its high toxicity and carcinogenicity. Although TiO2-based photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) has been established as one of the most promising technologies for environmental remediation and has been successful in treating a wide variety of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), PCO has only limited success in the treatment of aromatic compounds like benzene because of the deactivation of TiO2. The development of high performance photocatalysts for benzene degradation is indispensable for benzene treatment. Recently a series of wide bandgap p-block metal oxides/hydroxides with superior performance for the photocatalytic degradation of benzene have been developed in our institute. These wide bandgap p-block metal oxides/hydroxides are a series of promising photocatalysts for benzene degradation. In this article, the preparations of these p-block metal oxides/hydroxides, their photocatalytic activity and mechanism for benzene degradation as well as the structure-activity relationship are summarized.

Key words: Photocatalysis, Benzene, Degradation, p-Block metal oxides/hydroxides