Catalytic Nanomaterials: Energy and Environment

Dear Colleague,

A fast-growing industry and the rising global population in recent years have been the key factors contributing to the energy shortage and environmental pollution. As a green and sustainable technology, semiconductor-based heterogeneous photocatalysis has attracted wide attention in the past few decades because of its potential to solve both energy and environmental problems. Since the pioneering work on photocatalysis by Honda and Fujishima in 1972, various semiconductors have been designed and fabricated at the nanoscale to obtain efficient photocatalysts. These photocatalytic nanomaterials have important applications in the degradation of pollutants, water splitting, CO₂ reduction, nitrogen reduction, and so on.

Although nanomaterials have been widely investigated in different fields of photocatalysis owing to their unique properties, such as increased light-harvesting, charge separation, mass transport, and adsorption capacity, many challenges still remain in fabricating these photocatalysts through simple and facile synthesis strategies and in better understanding their photocatalytic enhancement mechanisms. This Special Issue should include a detailed discussion of the thermodynamics and kinetics of heterogeneous photocatalysis. Special emphasis is directed toward a better understanding of the design, controllable synthesis, reaction mechanisms, enhanced performance, and various applications of semiconductor photocatalysts.

We invite the submission of original research, reviews, and perspective articles on themes including, but not limited to:

• Scientific aspects of photocatalytic processes and basic understanding of photocatalysts as applied to environmental and human health problems;
• Nanophotocatalysts with novel morphology, porous structure, nanohybrids, and exposed active sites;
• Synthesis and characterization of nanostructural photocatalysts;
• Photocatalytic pollutant degradation, water splitting, CO₂ reduction, and nitrogen reduction using nanostructural materials;
• Theoretical calculations of photocatalysts and photocatalytic processes;
• Photocatalytic reaction mechanism.

Dr. Hongda Li
Prof. Dr. Mohammed Baalousha
Prof. Dr. Victor A. Nadtochenko
Guest Editors

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