Prospect and progress in the semiconductor photocatalysis

The recent progress in the researches on semiconductor photocatalysis was surveyed, and some existed problems in the current stud), and the future trend of development were briefly analyzed. The main achievements in the studies of photocatalysis during the recent three decades were particularized, including the preparation of photocatalyst ( exploitation of novel catalyst, and the modifications to TiO2, ZnO and CdS etc.), mechanism of photocatalytic process, engineering design of photocatalytic reaction, research and development of the products based on photocatalytic principle. Photocatalytic, in the mass, is a nonselective chemical process, so it is no longer important to redoing a great deal of examination of photocatalytic activity for different reactants. In fact, some repeated reports on the semiconductorphotocatalytic phenomena, and explanations of the mechanism withuot or lack of experiment support have been frequently found in the publications. It is suggested that attention of the future investigation on the semiconductor photocatalysis should focus on the four aspects as followed, i.e. profound comprehension for photocatalytic mechanism, synthesis or preparation of novel photocatalyst with wide response to light and high photo quantum efficiency, engineering of photocatalytic reaction, and developing of new type photocatalytic products.