Nanostructured materials for photocatalysis

Chunping Xu (1) , Prasaanth Ravi Anusuyadevi (2) , Cyril Aymonier (2) , Rafael Luque (3, 4) , Samuel Marre (2)

1 School of Food and Biological Engineering
2 ICMCB - Institut de Chimie de la Matière Condensée de Bordeaux
3 Universidad de Córdoba = University of Córdoba [Córdoba]
4 RUDN - Peoples Friendship University of Russia [RUDN University]

Photocatalysis is a green technology which converts abundantly available photonic energy into useful chemical energy. With a rapid rise of flow photoreactors in the last decade, the design and development of novel semiconductor photocatalysts is happening at a blistering rate. Currently, developed synthetic approaches have allowed the design of diverse modified/unmodified semiconductor materials exhibiting enhanced performances in heterogeneous photocatalysis. In this review, we have classified the so far reported highly efficient modified/unmodified semiconductor photocatalysts into four different categories based on the elemental composition, band gap engineering and charge carrier migration mechanism in composite photocatalysts. The recent synthetic developments are reported for each novel semiconductor photocatalyst within the four different categories, namely: pure semiconductors, solid solutions, type-II heterojunction nanocomposites and Z-scheme. The motivation behind the synthetic upgrading of modified/unmodified (pure) semiconductor photocatalysts along with their particular photochemical applications and photoreactor systems have been thoroughly reviewed.

Domaines: Matériaux; Catalyse

Chunping Xu, Prasaanth Ravi Anusuyadevi, Cyril Aymonier, Rafael Luque, Samuel Marre. Nanostructured materials for photocatalysis. Chemical Society Reviews, 2019, 48 (14), pp.3868-3902. ⟨10.1039/C9CS00102F⟩. ⟨hal-02185643⟩