Surface and interface design in cocatalysts for photocatalytic water splitting and CO₂reduction

Abstract

This review outlines the recent progress on designing the surface and interface of cocatalysts to create highly efficient photocatalysts for water splitting and CO2reduction.

Water splitting catalyzed by titanium dioxide decorated with plasmonic nanoparticles

“…(3) Because PNPs act as antennas for incoming light, less semiconductor materials is needed to trap the same amount of energy, thus increasing efficiency. (4) Metal NPs at the surface of TiO 2 constitute sites, which are potentially catalytically active [34]. (5) Finally the presence of metal NPs at the surface of TiO 2 plays a positive role in reducing the reflection losses taking place at the surface of the electrodes.…”

“…These are subsequently transferred to the CB of TiO 2 (Fig. 5) [34]. Xiong and coworkers [36] determined the direction of charge transfers across the interface using charge kinetics models and evidenced the interplay relationships between the light harvesting material and the cocatalyst.…”

Recent progress on advanced design for photoelectrochemical reduction of CO2 to fuels

“…It is well recognized that hybridizing semiconductor with metal nanoparticles as co-catalysts is an effective strategy for boosting the performance of photocatalysis [111,113]. The metal co-catalysts play two positive roles in the photocatalysis: 1) trapping the photo-induced charges to promote charge separation; and 2) performing as catalytic active sites to lower the overpotential and carry out the reaction.…”

“…In terms of heterogeneous cocatalysts, surface and interface engineering endows a promising approach to fabricate the catalytic system with high performance [111,192,193]. Generally speaking, surface engineering can alter the adsorption and desorption of substrate, intermediate and product molecules by tailoring the surface electronic state and configuration of catalytic sites, while the charge transfer and separation are largely influenced by interface engineering.…”

“…Although numerous efforts have been put on improving light harvesting efficiency to supply sufficient electrons, semiconductor surface shows the frustrating ability for CO 2 adsorption and activation, resulting in the low efficiency and selectivity for CO 2 conversion [27,28]. It is generally believed that anchoring co-catalysts with high activity at semiconductor surface is an effective approach to improve the efficiency of CO 2 reduction, which has achieved glorious accomplishments in photocatalytic processes [19,111,112]. The co-catalysts can lower the overpotential and reduce the energy barrier, facilitating CO 2 activation.…”