Abstract
The long-standing crusade searching for efficient photocatalytic materials has resulted in a vast landscape of promising photocatalysts, as reflected by the number of reviews reported in the last decade. Virtually all of these reviews have focused on quantitative approaches aiming at developing an understanding of the underlying mechanisms behind photocatalytic behavior and the parameters that influence structure–function correlation. Less attention has been paid, however, to qualitative measures around the development and assessment of photocatalysts. These measures will contribute toward narrowing the range of potential photocatalytic materials for widespread applications. The current report provides a critical perspective over some of the main factors affecting the assessment of photocatalytic materials as a code of good practice. A case of study is also provided, where this qualitative analysis is applied to one of the most prolific materials of the last-decade, disorder-engineered, black titanium dioxide (TiO2).
Highlights
Dependence An unambiguous demonstration proving that a material is method independent is useful toward establishing a rationale for its photocatalytic behavior
This is relevant to photocatalytic materials, where any attempt to establish structure–function correlation will rely on an accurate description of surface physical properties
Despite fruitful research in photocatalytic materials (Tong et al, 2012), overall quantum efficiencies remain low for widespread practical applications
Summary
The research activities in the engineering of photocatalysts has continued growing steadily over the last decades, as evidenced by the number of reviews in this subject, covering widespread experimental (Jang et al, 2012; Takanabe and Domen, 2012; Tong et al, 2012; Dozzi and Selli, 2013; Osterloh, 2013; Wang et al, 2014; Zhou et al, 2014; Li et al, 2015, 2016a, 2018; Moniz et al, 2015; Zhang et al, 2016; Bai et al, 2017, 2018; Chen et al, 2017; Takanabe, 2017; Adekoya et al, 2019; Zhao et al, 2020) and theoretical studies (Sun and Ceder, 2013; Bokarev et al, 2015; Pacchioni, 2015; Zhang and Jaroniec, 2018; Wang et al, 2019) Despite these efforts, overall efficiencies of advanced materials are still very far from industrial targets, and the global market in photocatalysis (>£1Bn) is still dominated by a single standard material—titanium dioxide (TiO2). The case of study is based on a photocatalytic disorder-engineered, hydrogen-doped TiO2, which has generated active research in many directions in the last decade
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