Recent advances in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution with high-performance catalysts without precious metals

By W. Zhao, Zhi Chen, Xiuru Yang, Xiaoxiao Qian, Chunxi Liu, Dantong Zhou, Tao Sun, Ming Zhang, G. Wei, P. D. Dissanayake and 1 more. Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2020

160 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract The exploitation of green and renewable energy sources is imperative due to the environmental pollution produced by the massive use of non-renewable fossil energy. Hydrogen is a promising clean fuel since it exhibits high energy density and causes no secondary pollution. The photocatalytic production of H2 from water splitting has gained immense attention since it is a low-cost, low-energy consuming, and environmentally friendly process. Various attempts have been made to prepare active and highly efficient catalysts for photocatalytic H2 evolution. However, the use of precious metals as co-catalysts makes the H2 production costly, thus limiting their practical applications. Herein, we discuss the latest advancements in the H2 evolution on photocatalysts without noble metals. The progress achieved in the development of diverse photocatalysts has been critically evaluated in this review. Special attention has been paid to the challenges and tactics about enhancing the H2 evolution upon non-noble-metal photocatalysts. This review will be helpful for designing high efficiency photocatalysts for fundamental research and practical applications.

Subfields: Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/eb10feaa35003fcdcc7a72a604bcde21790832b3