Electrospun Semiconductor‐Based Nano‐Heterostructures for Photocatalytic Energy Conversion and Environmental Remediation: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

Harvesting solar energy to drive the semiconductor photocatalysis offers a promising tactic to address ever‐growing challenges of both energy shortage and environmental pollution. Design and synthesis of nano‐heterostructure photocatalysts with controllable components and morphologies are the key factors for achieving highly efficient photocatalytic processes. One‐dimensional (1D) semiconductor nanofibers produced by electrospinning possess a large ratio of length to diameter, high ratio of surface to volume, small grain sizes, and high porosity, which are ideally suited for photocatalytic reactions from the viewpoint of structure advantage. After the secondary treatment of these nanofibers through the solvothermal, gas reduction, in situ doping, or assembly methods, the multi‐component nanofibers with hierarchical nano‐heterostructures can be obtained to further enhance their light absorption and charge carrier separation during the photocatalytic processes. In recent years, the electrospun semiconductor‐based nano‐heterostructures have become a “hot topic” in the fields of photocatalytic energy conversion and environmental remediation. This review article summarizes the recent progress in electrospinning synthesis of various kinds of high‐performance semiconductor‐based nano‐heterostructure photocatalysts for H2 production, CO2 reduction, and decomposition of pollutants. The future perspectives of these materials are also discussed.

Alkyl group-decorated g-C3N4 for enhanced gas-phase CO2 photoreduction

“…Photocatalytic CO 2 reduction into high value-added chemical fuels is able to simultaneously mitigate the increasingly severe energy crisis and environmental problems, which is considered as one of the photochemical reactions with the most potential. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] To apply photocatalytic CO 2 reduction technology in practice, the main research aim is to seek the proper photocatalyst. In recent decades, polymeric g-C 3 N 4 has received great attention as a promising photocatalyst because of its excellent physical and chemical stability, easy synthesis methods, low cost, abundant resources, and visible-light response, etc.…”

Effective Cascade Modulation of Charge-Carriers Kinetics in the Well-Designed Multi-Component Nanofiber System for Highly-Efficient Photocatalytic H₂ Generation

“…The overlapped spectra between Ag NPs and g-C3N4 would induce plasmonic sensitization process of RET in their heterostructure based on the non-radiative transfer way from plasmonic dipoles to g-C3N4 (Scheme 1C: b). Meanwhile, coupling Ag NPs with TiO2 is regarded as an effective method to extend the light absorption and utilization range of TiO2 via the plasmonic sensitization process of HET from Ag NPs to TiO2 across their hetero-interface (Scheme 1C: c) 9,20 . Moreover, plasmonic Ag NPs can be easily vulcanized into the direct bandgap semiconductor of Ag2S that possesses a narrow bandgap energy of ~1.0 eV [21][22][23] .…”

A high temperature macroscopically flexible inorganic CaYAl3O7:Eu3+ nanofiber luminescent membrane

“…In this paper, a self-supporting high-temperature macroscopically flexible inorganic CaYAl 3 O 7 :Eu 3+ (hereafter referred to as CYA:E) nanofiber luminescent membrane was successfully prepared by electrospinning [35][36][37][38] and high-temperature calcination with the prepared stable spinning solution. And the effect of grain size on the macroscopic flexibility and luminescence intensity of the high-temperature inorganic CYA:E nanofiber membrane was investigated using a bending stress test system and a fluorescence spectrometer system.…”