Photocatalyst Discovered by Japanese Researchers
The current COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a spotlight on a discovery made by Japanese researchers half a century ago: photocatalyst technology.
Photocatalysts are materials that induce a chemical reaction under photoirradiation. Titanium dioxide, the most widely known, causes strong oxidation when exposed to light. Photocatalyst technology leverages this phenomenon to decompose harmful or odor-causing substances into materials like water or carbon dioxide.
Fujishima Akira, the former president of the Tokyo University of Science, was studying for his PhD at the University of Tokyo when he made this discovery. In 1972, after finding that titanium dioxide oxidizes in water when exposed to strong light, Fujishima published a paper on the photocatalytic reaction in the influential British scientific journal