Abstract: In recent years, a persistent organic pollutant, namely perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), that widely exists in the environment, has attracted extensive attention. The efficient treatment of PFOA has always been a research hotspot and challenging subject. Due to its eco-friendly, high-efficiency, low-cost and completely degradable features, photocatalytic degradation technology has become an effective method for promising application in the treatment of PFOA, as compared with other methods. The key point of photocatalytic technology is to construct photocatalytic semiconductor materials that can make efficient use of optical energy, while semiconductor materials are often limited by fast recombination rate of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. At present, researchers often modify semiconductor materials by means of metal ion doping, precious metal deposition, carbon material composite, construction of heterojunction, variation of microscopic morphology and so on to improve photocatalytic degradation capability. According to the current research status at home and abroad, this paper introduces the advantages of photocatalytic technology in the degradation of PFOA, summarizes the photocatalytic oxidation degradation mechanism and the research progress of photocatalytic treatment of PFOA by semiconductor materials. Combined with the advantages, disadvantages and efficiency comparison of different semiconductor catalytic materials, the shortcomings of photocatalytic treatment of PFOA are discussed. This paper provides reference and theoretical support for further development and application of photocatalytic technology in the degradation of PFOA.

Key words: photocatalytic technology, perfluorooctanoic acid, mechanism, semiconductor material