Sunlight began to be used to purify water

Scientists used photocatalysis, a method of accelerating a chemical reaction through interaction

special substance - photocatalyst - withfalling light. Some photocatalysts, when absorbing light, promote the oxidation of organic substances, which is used for wastewater treatment, the researchers noted.

Now in industry for similar processesTitanium dioxide TiO2 is used - it is cheap to manufacture, but it reacts to visible light in a relatively narrow range, which significantly reduces its efficiency.

We were able to establish the characteristics of the connections,belonging to the β-pyrochlore structural type, and proposed a new structural model, based on which, they predicted and synthesized new tellurium-containing compounds. The photocatalysts we obtained on this basis, on the one hand, meet the criteria put forward for the band structure of the material to carry out the corresponding reactions, and on the other hand, they are chemically stable in aqueous solutions and organic solvents, which will allow them to be used for a long time. 

Diana Fukina, Junior Researcher, Laboratory of High-Purity Materials Technology, Research Institute of Chemistry, Lobachevsky University

Thus, the researchers established which reactions can photocatalyze the resulting materials, which ones can determine their relative positions of the valence band and the edges of the conduction band. 

Scientific team continues detailed researchthe mechanism of the processes of photocatalytic decomposition of organic matter using the already obtained compounds. This will make it possible to understand how it is necessary to modify the compounds, under what conditions and in relation to which processes their efficiency will be maximum.

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