Semiconductor Composites: Strategies for Enhancing Charge Carrier Separation to Improve Photocatalytic Activity

TLDR

Semiconductor composites with multicomponent or multiphase heterojunctions are an effective strategy for designing highly active photocatalysts. This review summarizes recent strategies for developing semiconductor composites and highlights the latest developments. The review details various heterojunction strategies, classifies three heterojunction types, reviews historical and recent literature, and focuses on carbon nitride and multiphase systems such as anatase–rutile. Well‑designed composites of two or three materials or phases enhance charge separation and transfer, markedly improving photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical performance.

Abstract

The formation of semiconductor composites comprising multicomponent or multiphase heterojunctions is a very effective strategy to design highly active photocatalyst systems. This review summarizes the recent strategies to develop such composites, and highlights the most recent developments in the field. After a general introduction into the different strategies to improve photocatalytic activity through formation of heterojunctions, the three different types of heterojunctions are introduced in detail, followed by a historical introduction to semiconductor heterojunction systems and a thorough literature overview. Special chapters describe the highly‐investigated carbon nitride heterojunctions as well as very recent developments in terms of multiphase heterojunction formation, including the latest insights into the anatase‐rutile system. When carefully designed, semiconductor composites comprising two or three different materials or phases very effectively facilitate charge separation and charge carrier transfer, substantially improving photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical efficiency.