  Due to the permanent harm to human health and ecosystem balance, antibiotic
pollution in water has become an important direction of current environmental
governance. Spherical metal oxides (SMOs) have been frequently utilized as
effective heterogeneous photocatalysts for the efficient degradation of
antibiotics due to the unique properties (e.g., strong light absorption
ability, high separation efficiency of photo-generated electron hole pairs, and
good catalytic activity). This review will firstly focus on summarizing the
rational design and synthesis of SMOs with various tuned microstructures such
as hollow, porous shell, yolk shell, core shell, and nanoflowers. These
structures can expose more active sites, achieve a higher utilization rate of
light, enhance the mass transfer efficiency and improve the effective diffusion
of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Secondly, this review will mainly analyze the
intrinsic relationship between the structure of SMOs and its photocatalytic
property, the ability to generate ROS, and the degradation pathway for
antibiotics. Moreover, the photocatalytic mechanisms and recent progress of
different SMOs catalysts for degrading typical antibiotics are compared in
detail. Finally, challenges and prospects of future direction in the
development of SMOs for antibiotic degradation are reviewed. It is expected to
provide a rational design of SMOs catalysts for efficient photocatalytic
degradation of environmental pollutants.
