Silicon‐Based Photocatalysis for Green Chemical Fuels and Carbon Negative Technologies

Abstract

Silicon, an earth‐abundant material with mature technology, low‐cost manufacturing, and high stability, holds promise to enable the sustainable exploitation of solar energy resources currently under utilized at the world‐scale. Apart from traditional interest in the photovoltaic industry, recent years have seen increasingly large activity in the study of Si‐based photo‐electro‐chemical (PEC) cells for water splitting and CO2 reduction. This research established an exciting area with the potential to address the present environmental crisis originating from unregulated CO2 emission levels. In this review, the recent work on Si‐based PEC devices for large scale production of hydrogen via water splitting, and carbon‐negative technologies for the solar‐driven reduction of CO2 into chemical fuels of industrial interest are summarized. Bias‐assisted and bias‐free PEC architectures are discussed, highlighting the motivations, challenges, functional mechanisms, and commenting on the perspectives related to this field of research both as a science and engineering.

Recent Improvements in Renewable Energies and their effects on the Environment and the Economy: Review Article

“…This field of study also boomed and get more attraction of scientists (Figure 6). For example, Li et al [25] reviewed the Si-based photocatalysis for green chemical fuels and carbon-negative technologies. Since Si is one of the abundant elements in the crust, so it can be used as a sustainable solar energy resource.…”

Recent advancement in heterogeneous CO2 reduction processes in aqueous electrolyte

“…However, several significant reviews are also available looking exclusively at PEC CO 2 RR. 32–37 Li et al 38 and Feng et al 39 covered PEC CO 2 RR concisely along with PEC water splitting, while Zheng et al 40 did so along with the nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR). Yang et al 41 made a detailed review of both EC and PEC.…”

Carbon-Doping as Efficient Strategy for Improving Photocatalytic Activity of Polysilicon Supported Pd in Hydrogen Evolution from Formic Acid

“…Semiconductors are widely employed in various applications on account of their compactness, inexpensiveness, reliability, and power efficiency. Polysilicon (PS)-based semiconductors are potentially active species for optical proposes, especially when doped by an atom such as B or N [9]. The C-doped PS is one of the less-studied species [10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”