Role of Zinc Oxide Nanomaterials for Photocatalytic Degradation of Environmental Pollutants

The environment is seriously exposed to numerous pesticides and chemical compounds produced by quick industrialization and pharmaceutical firms. The ability of new photocatalysts based on zinc oxide nanomaterials to absorb these organic and inorganic contaminants from the environment is very promising. The photocatalysts have many outstanding qualities, including excellent stability, nontoxicity, and photocatalytic degradation potential. However, several drawbacks, like poor affinity, a large band gap, particle agglomeration, and recapture difficulties, are also connected to using these photocatalysts. Therefore, optimization is necessary to raise their effectiveness while ensuring they are affordable and long-lasting. This chapter highlights the current advances in photocatalytic principles and mechanisms for environmental pollutants degradation, synthesis and characterization of ZnO nanomaterials, photocatalytic degradation of environmental pollutants by ZnO nanomaterials, and different enhancement strategies for ZnO photocatalysis that increase the elimination efficiency of ZnO-based photocatalysts.