Facing of the increasing consumption of fossil fuels and the ensuing energy and environmental crisis, semiconductor photocatalysis technology is expected to develop new energy sources and also control environmental contamination. Only driven by sunlight, the semiconductors can convert water into hydrogen energy and thoroughly splitting water. Compared with the extensively studied electrochemical water splitting technology, photocatalytic OWS does not require the use of conductive electrolyte, for example, strongly acidic or alkaline solutions. Instead, fresh water, or sea water, can be readily split into H2 and O2 via semiconductor photocatalysis without any sacrificial agents.
For semiconductor photocatalysts, especially in the preparation process of co-catalysts, photo-deposition reaction, as a kind of well-adopted treating method, is used to construct active site. Therefore, strong photooxidation and reduction ability to the metal or metal oxide ions of semiconductor material is the basic guarantee of active site with high efficiency. This property comes from the crystal, defect and surface structure of semiconductor. However, the selectivity of deposition ions is uncontrollable, and types of cocatalyst are also restricted. Specifically, the specific mechanisms of photo-induced carrier conversion between co-catalysts and semiconductor bulk are still unknown, and it need to be further investigation that active sites can induce directional migration of the carriers and desirably inhibit electron–hole recombination.
To date, numerous bulk semiconductors with different shapes and sizes have been used in photocatalytic OWS reactions. However, the hydrogen evolution rate of OWS and the STH value are still low, which are unable to meet commercial requirements. The Research Topic includes, but are not limited to:
• Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution materials
• Photocatalytic oxygen evolution materials
• Photocatalytic overall water splitting technology
• New reaction mechanism of photocatalytic water splitting
• Photocatalytic technique of nano-semiconductor and their devices
• 2D photocatalytic materials and their devices
• Computational modelling/simulations
Hence, the related topics include the photocatalysis material preparation, semiconductor photocatalyst design, reactor design, new reaction mechanism, interface reaction of OWS, and hydrogen oxygen separation technology et al. The types of manuscripts we are interested mainly include Reviews, Original Research.
Keywords:
Water splitting, Semiconductor photocatalysts, Photo-induced carriers, Photoredox, Hydrogen evolution reaction
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
Facing of the increasing consumption of fossil fuels and the ensuing energy and environmental crisis, semiconductor photocatalysis technology is expected to develop new energy sources and also control environmental contamination. Only driven by sunlight, the semiconductors can convert water into hydrogen energy and thoroughly splitting water. Compared with the extensively studied electrochemical water splitting technology, photocatalytic OWS does not require the use of conductive electrolyte, for example, strongly acidic or alkaline solutions. Instead, fresh water, or sea water, can be readily split into H2 and O2 via semiconductor photocatalysis without any sacrificial agents.
For semiconductor photocatalysts, especially in the preparation process of co-catalysts, photo-deposition reaction, as a kind of well-adopted treating method, is used to construct active site. Therefore, strong photooxidation and reduction ability to the metal or metal oxide ions of semiconductor material is the basic guarantee of active site with high efficiency. This property comes from the crystal, defect and surface structure of semiconductor. However, the selectivity of deposition ions is uncontrollable, and types of cocatalyst are also restricted. Specifically, the specific mechanisms of photo-induced carrier conversion between co-catalysts and semiconductor bulk are still unknown, and it need to be further investigation that active sites can induce directional migration of the carriers and desirably inhibit electron–hole recombination.
To date, numerous bulk semiconductors with different shapes and sizes have been used in photocatalytic OWS reactions. However, the hydrogen evolution rate of OWS and the STH value are still low, which are unable to meet commercial requirements. The Research Topic includes, but are not limited to:
• Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution materials
• Photocatalytic oxygen evolution materials
• Photocatalytic overall water splitting technology
• New reaction mechanism of photocatalytic water splitting
• Photocatalytic technique of nano-semiconductor and their devices
• 2D photocatalytic materials and their devices
• Computational modelling/simulations
Hence, the related topics include the photocatalysis material preparation, semiconductor photocatalyst design, reactor design, new reaction mechanism, interface reaction of OWS, and hydrogen oxygen separation technology et al. The types of manuscripts we are interested mainly include Reviews, Original Research.
Keywords:
Water splitting, Semiconductor photocatalysts, Photo-induced carriers, Photoredox, Hydrogen evolution reaction
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.