Rational Design of Metal Oxide‐Based Heterostructure for Efficient Photocatalytic and Photoelectrochemical Systems

Abstract

Solar‐driven photo‐to‐chemical conversion is an interesting approach for energy harvesting and storage with high sustainability. To achieve high photo‐to‐chemical conversion efficiency, it is important to develop cost‐effective and stable catalysts with high activity. Metal oxides provide an interesting platform for the development of efficient catalysts owing to their abundance, high stability, and tunable band edges. Their performance highly depends on the rational design of heterostructures with engineered electronic structures, modified charge migration behavior, tailored interfacial properties, and amplified electromagnetic fields. All these enable the achievement of efficient light harvesting, promoted charge separation and transport, and accelerated surface reactions. Herein, a recent study on rationally designed metal oxide heterostructures for enhancing photo‐to‐chemical energy conversion via photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical systems is reviewed. The approaches to enhance their conversion efficiency are as follows: 1) surface modification via loading of plasmonic metals and other photosensitizers; 2) surface regulation, including morphology, defect, and dopants; 3) interfacial assembly with metal oxides, other metal compounds, and metal‐free materials. Moreover, the underlying reaction mechanisms of metal oxide‐based heterostructures and how they affect the energy conversion efficiency are discussed. Finally, the challenges and perspectives on the development of metal oxide‐based heterostructures and associated photo‐to‐chemical devices are presented.

Simultaneous Manipulation of Bulk Excitons and Surface Defects for Ultrastable and Highly Selective CO2 Photoreduction

“…Thus, in electron‐driven PCR, excitons will not energetically contribute to the PCR unless they are re‐dissociated into free charge carriers. [ 11–14 ] Because bulk configuration usually determines charge carrier kinetics, tremendous research efforts have been devoted to developing various methods, including heterojunctioning, [ 15 ] sensitization, [ 16 ] metal–metal oxide decoration, [ 17 ] and internal field tuning, [ 18,19 ] for boosting free‐charge‐carrier generation and transportation.…”

Boosting the Photocarrier Separation of PbMoO4 through Facet Collaboration

“…Crystal surface engineering is the hottest research, − with the ability to modulate light absorption, photocarrier separation, and photocatalyst surface reaction. − Although it was found that m BiVO 4 exposed with the (100) or (001) crystal plane has better light absorption ability, − it has the most practical significance to study the photocarrier separation efficiency as well as the surface reaction efficiency for a catalyst that has been synthesized − Compared to loading or coupling with a cocatalyst, the composite system will be further enhanced if the substrate itself has excellent photocarrier separation efficiency through crystal facet-induced internal electric fields. − Therefore, the usage of facet engineering to construct an excellent photocatalyst substrate or one used directly is meaningful and this subject needs significant development.…”

Opportunities from Doping of Non‐Critical Metal Oxides in Last Generation Light‐Conversion Devices

“…Without having the presumption of addressing this extremely wide field, which was already thoroughly reviewed, [197][198][199][200][201][202] we choose to focus on the importance of the choice of the main photocatalytic element. Indeed, within this specific application field, the use of cheap and widely available elements represents the only feasible economical perspective due to the large amount of catalyst needed, especially if compared to the closest relative, i.e., water electrolysis.…”