In recent years, semiconductor photocatalysis has become one of the research hotspots in the field of environment. A large number of studies have shown that almost all organic pollutants can be effectively photocatalytically degraded, decolorized and mineralized into inorganic small molecular substances, thereby eliminating environmental pollution and hazards.

As a semiconductor material (with a band gap of 2.4 to 2.8 eV), tungsten oxide has an extremely wide range of applications in photoelectrochemistry.  Among them, purple tungsten oxide (W18O49) has attracted special attention from researchers because of its unique properties and structure.  

China's tungsten reserves rank first in the world, two-thirds of which are scheelite. However, scheelite is often distributed in fine grains, the grade of raw ore is low, and it often coexists with calcareous gangue minerals with better floatability. Therefore, the separation of scheelite and calcareous gangue minerals has always been a difficult problem in the mineral processing industry.

Zinc tungstate has high photocatalytic activity and excellent single crystal scintillation properties; thus, it is one of the most promising photocatalysts and high-energy physical scintillation materials. It possesses a high potential to applicate in photocatalytic synthesis and complex ultra-micro device preparation.