Dissimilar dimensional materials based tailored heterostructures for photocatalytic hydrogen production

Abstract

In the quest of developing sustainable fuels for future, sunlight and water enabled hydrogen (H2) production has been looked as the most ideal strategy to impart clean and sustainable energy solution. Being main propelling vector in H2 production technology via water splitting, the nanoscale design of binary or tertiary heterostructured photocatalysts based on dissimilar dimensional materials (DDM) are gaining increasing popularity as they inherits the respective advantages of their counterparts. The 2-dimensional (2D) materials, as a formidable component in DDMs, has shown significant boost in the H2 production efficiency owing to their large surface areas which helps in facilitating charge transportation, immobilizing catalysts while preventing agglomeration and re-stacking. The xD-2D based single heterojunction (x = 0D, 1D, 2D and 3D) and double heterojunction (x = 0D/0D, 0D/1D, 0D/2D and 2D/2D) extends from the combined efforts of distinct growth genres between xD and 2D nanostructures and the acute control over tailored xD-2D interface. In the need of hours for achieving scalable H2 production, it becomes utmost necessary to understand physics and chemistry of interfaces in the xD-2D heterostructured photocatalysts. This comprehensive review encapsulates the key developments in very recent synthesis protocols for H2 production via application of DDM based heterogeneous photocatalysts and also proposes the challenges and prospects of futuristic H2 economy. It is anticipated that this review will present a broad canvas in terms of highlighting the merits/demerits of prominent synthesis strategies and underlying morphological challenges in designing heterostructures, while the enriched information will be useful for developing more efficient photocatalysts.