An elegant and eco-friendly photocatalytic degradation approach for the most commonly used herbicide, Atrazine (ATZ); allowed a selective and partial degradation into atrazine-2-hydroxy (Hydroxyatrazine, HAT), which was the sole obtained metabolite. The effect of tungstosilicates and tungstophosphates as photocatalysts under 60 min UV irradiation at two different wavelengths; 254 and 366 nm; was investigated by measuring the absorbance at 10-min intervals, using 720-UV spectrophotometry. ATZ conversion rate was the highest when irradiating with the higher-energy 254 nm UV light. This resulted into 54% degradation in the presence of the siliconbased α-Keggin dodecatungstosilicate [α-SiW 12 O 40 ] 4− , whereas 17% was decomposed in its absence. The nature of the heteroatom as well as the structural type of the studied polyoxometalates had a significant effect on the degradation percentage. Accordingly, 31% of ATZ was only decomposed in presence of the phosphorus-analogue [α-PW 12 O 40 ] 4− whereas the cyclic superlacunary octatetracontatungstooctaphosphate [P 8 W 48 O 184 ] 40− increased the degradation to 41%.

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