Recent Progress in Photocatalytic Water Splitting

Dear Colleagues,

Ever since the discovery of photo-induced effects on the water-splitting ability of semiconductors by Fujishima and Honda, there has been a growing demand to convert the solar energy into reusable energy for the welfare of mankind. Photocatalysis involves the acceleration of photo-induced chemical reactions by the presence of catalysts. The field spans the interdisciplinary research area, which  has steadily grown at the intersection of electrochemistry, solid-state physics, surface chemistry, and optics.

The photocatalytic process can be efficiently used to convert chemical energy to reusable electrical energy on photo-responsive catalytic materials, with the help of abundantly available water and sunlight. It is one of the effective methods of energy conversion, considering the fact that natural fossil-fuel-based energy resources are very limited. The efficiency of photocatalytic hydrogen generation from water splitting is relatively low, because of the fast recombination of photogenerated electron–hole pairs, the inability to use the visible light of many photocatalysts, and the possibility of a reverse reaction that involves rapid hydrogen and oxygen recombination.

In general, new strategies need to be developed to overcome the sluggish reaction kinetics, the requirement of a higher overpotential, fast recombination losses of photogenerated charge carriers (excitons), and poor charge transport. Although the efficiencies of photocatalytic energy conversion processes are still low, more efforts can be made to steadily improve the efficiencies further by tuning and tailoring the physicochemical, morphological, and optical properties of potential photocatalytic materials.

This Special Issue aims to focus on new trends, not exclusively in photocatalysis, but also encompassing the broader aspects of photocatalysis, which includes the synthesis and characterization of photocatalytic materials, investigating photo-electrocatalysis to split water into hydrogen, photochemical or photoelectrochemical conversion of CO₂ to hydrocarbon fuels, and surface plasmonic properties of nanomaterials for water oxidation/reduction. The Special Issue welcomes research topics based on structural engineering, the construction of visible-light active photoelectrodes (photoanodes, photocathodes, or tandem cells), and the stability improvement of photoelectrodes and materials design. The ultimate goal is to strive for a trade-off between the efficiency and the stability of the materials for reaping out the optimum performance in photo(electro)catalytic water splitting so as to produce clean and value-added solar fuels.

Dr. Pravin S. Shinde
Prof. Dr. Shanlin Pan
Guest Editors

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• Photocatalytic water splitting
• Photoelectrochemical water splitting
• Solar fuel generation
• Solar hydrogen generation
• Nanostructured semiconductor photoelectrodes
• Plasmonic nanostructured materials for photocatalysis
• Photoelectrochemistry of semiconductor materials