Photocatalytic Bacterial Destruction and Mineralization by TiO₂-Based Photocatalysts: A Mini Review

This work presents an overview of the reports on the bacterial cell photocatalytic destruction and mineralization process in the presence of TiO₂-based photocatalysts. The presented research included experiments conducted in air and water. Numerous works confirmed that a photocatalytic process with TiO₂ led to bacteria and their organic residues' mineralization. Additionally, based on the obtained results, a possible two-stage mechanism of photocatalytic mineralization in the presence of TiO₂-based materials was proposed. To help future studies, challenges of photocatalytic microorganism mineralization are also proposed. There are some aspects that need to be addressed, such as the lack of standardization of conducted research or relatively small amount of research on photocatalytic microorganism mineralization. According to our best knowledge, in the available literature, no work regarding a summary of previous research on photocatalytic bacterial mineralization process was found.