Photoactive catalysts for effective water microbial purification: Morphology-activity relationship

Abstract Significant enhancement in the performance of antibacterial bioactive materials in water purification has historically been achieved through the use of optimized nanostructured systems. This report demonstrates the dependance of the antibacterial performance of Titania on its morphology and the method of synthesis for the application of water microbial purification. In this regard, TiO 2 with different morphologies, including nanoparticles (NPs), nanofibers (NFs) and nanotubes (NTs), were synthesized using different techniques and their antimicrobial properties were studied. Upon UV irradiation, hydrothermally synthetized-TiO 2 NTs showed the highest efficiency among the other architectures in deactivating E. coli (∼96.7%). Several factors play a significant role in determining the antibacterial activity of TiO 2 . These factors were examined and analysed in this report, including the crystalline phase, surface hydroxyls, physicochemical properties of TiO 2 as well as experimental conditions.