Hydrogen Production from Semiconductor-based Photocatalysis via Water Splitting

TLDR

Hydrogen is an ideal, clean, abundant fuel, and solar photocatalytic water splitting has emerged as a promising, low‑cost, environmentally friendly method for its production. The paper reviews the development of visible‑light photocatalytic water splitting for hydrogen generation. It surveys hydrogen production technologies, photocatalytic water splitting on titania and non‑titania photocatalysts, various approaches, and outlines current challenges and future prospects. Key to advancing solar‑hydrogen production is developing highly stable visible‑light‑active photocatalysts and efficient, low‑cost photoreactor designs.

Abstract

Hydrogen is the ideal fuel for the future because it is clean, energy efficient, and abundant in nature. While various technologies can be used to generate hydrogen, only some of them can be considered environmentally friendly. Recently, solar hydrogen generated via photocatalytic water splitting has attracted tremendous attention and has been extensively studied because of its great potential for low-cost and clean hydrogen production. This paper gives a comprehensive review of the development of photocatalytic water splitting for generating hydrogen, particularly under visible-light irradiation. The topics covered include an introduction of hydrogen production technologies, a review of photocatalytic water splitting over titania and non-titania based photocatalysts, a discussion of the types of photocatalytic water-splitting approaches, and a conclusion for the current challenges and future prospects of photocatalytic water splitting. Based on the literatures reported here, the development of highly stable visible–light-active photocatalytic materials, and the design of efficient, low-cost photoreactor systems are the key for the advancement of solar-hydrogen production via photocatalytic water splitting in the future.