Semiconductor based photocatalytic degradation of pesticides: An overview

Abstract Pesticides are a mixture of substances and widely used for destroying, combating, or controlling pests Various technologies used to control pesticide concentration in nature include photolysis, photo-Fenton, semiconductor-based photocatalysis and photoelectrocatalysis, etc. Among them semiconductor based photocatalysis has attracted huge attention due to its more feasible and higher rate of degradation which further leads to a great charge of mineralization. This review mainly focuses to discuss and summarize numerous characteristics of photocatalytic elimination of pesticides. The discussion includes the mechanism of semiconductor photocatalytic degradation, modifications over semiconductors that are available in the literature to increase the efficiency of the degradation process, and finally optimization of different parameters of a process for enhancement in the degradation course. The parameters elaborated in this study are pH of the system, amount of semiconductor catalyst, initial concentration of pesticides, calcination temperature of catalyst, and wavelength as well as the intensity of light.