Emerging Photoreforming Process to Hydrogen Production: A Future Energy

Abstract

In the quest of renewable energy technologies, solar photoreforming emerges as one of the affordable yet challenging process for converting biomass into hydrogen, hydrocarbon fuels, and chemicals. This review highlights the state‐of‐the‐art photoreforming, elucidating its underlying mechanisms for the conversion of dissipated polymers into H2 and valuable chemicals. Biomass feedstocks such as carbohydrates, agricultural residues, glycopolymers, food wastes, and waste plastics are evaluated based on their chemical composition, energy content, and sustainability aspects, exploring the selection of appropriate bio‐renewable resources, considering their abundance, availability, and potential for hydrogen production. The impact of diverse process parameters on photoreforming efficiency is explored, encompassing factors like reaction temperature, pH, catalyst loading, reactor design, solvent effect, and light intensity across various sacrificial substrates. The discussion also considers their correlation with hydrogen production rate, selectivity, and energy efficiency. This review buckles on the design and synthesis of functional photocatalysts for biomass‐derived feedstock, highlighting their photocatalytic (PC) properties in biomass reforming processes and related feedstock into valuable chemicals and biofuel. The review also delves into potential pathways for future advancements including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), alongside addressing the challenges and insightful perspectives within this evolving field of future green energy.

InVO4-Decorated Ti3C2 MXene for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

“…Hence, using IVTC as a photocatalyst can promote the efficiency of both UV and visible light utilization in photocatalysis. The direct band gap energy of InVO 4 was determined as 2.13 eV through extrapolation of the linear region in the (αhυ) 2 versus energy (hυ) curves, where α is the absorption coefficient (Figure 5b).…”

“…The pursuit of sustainable and clean energy has heightened the investigation into advanced materials for catalyzing photocatalytic processes, specifically in hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs). 1,2 Hydrogen, a clean and efficient energy source, serves as a potential substitute for fossil fuels, with advantages including diverse viable sources, high energy production, and efficient storage options. 3,4 Addressing global energy needs and environmental concerns, the recent emphasis on developing clean energy highlights the potential of photocatalytic water splitting for hydrogen evolution as a promising solution.…”

“…The pursuit of sustainable and clean energy has heightened the investigation into advanced materials for catalyzing photocatalytic processes, specifically in hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs). , Hydrogen, a clean and efficient energy source, serves as a potential substitute for fossil fuels, with advantages including diverse viable sources, high energy production, and efficient storage options. , Addressing global energy needs and environmental concerns, the recent emphasis on developing clean energy highlights the potential of photocatalytic water splitting for hydrogen evolution as a promising solution. , Considerable work has been dedicated to previous explorations to enhance the efficient production of hydrogen in photocatalytic materials, leading to substantial progress. − In recent years, there has been a concentrated effort to develop cost-effective photocatalysts with potent photocatalytic properties and investigate methods to enhance their performance through adjustments in morphology, size, shape, and composition . For instance, creating a range of porous microrods of Ni–Co–O via annelation of bimetallic Ni x Co 1– x -MOFs results in well-designed structures, with the Ni 0.2 –Co 0.8 –O microrod showing the maximal efficiency for CO 2 photoreduction .…”