Photocatalytic degradation‐oriented technology using nano‐architecture materials for the remediation of harmful food dye pollutants: A review

Abstract Photocatalytic degradation using nanoarchitecture materials remains a frontline technique for the remediation of aquatic pollutants, including food dyes, a crucial ingredient contributing positively to the food industry/production, while polluting the aquatic bodies. This paper aimed to review the remediation of food dye pollutants through photocatalytic degradation‐oriented technology. Beyond evaluating the photocatalytic degradation performance of various nanomaterials, this study takes advantage of radical scavengers/electron trapping to elucidate the food dye photocatalytic degradation mechanism as part of the study's novelty. Another novelty of this work is in recyclability and real‐life application studies, which are often neglected in many other reviews, and this was explored in this work to establish the industrial applicability/eco‐economic benefits of nanomaterials. Notably, composite nanomaterials were found to be more efficient than the non‐composites. Findings also revealed that, on average, various nanomaterials have an optimum photocatalytic degradation capacity of >75% for various food dyes and can be reused 2–10X while sustaining >70% of the original efficiency. The electron trapping analysis further showed that •OH and •O 2 are the leading radicals responsible for photocatalytic degradation activities. The use of artificial intelligence for better photocatalytic degradation mechanism interpretation/probing of radicals' participation is found to be an interesting area for future research.