Abstract
Solar energy is a key sustainable energy resource, and materials with optimal properties are essential for efficient solar energy‐driven applications in photocatalysis. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are excellent platforms to generate different nanocomposites comprising metals, oxides, chalcogenides, phosphides, or carbides embedded in porous carbon matrix. These MOF derived nanocomposites offer symbiosis of properties like high crystallinities, inherited morphologies, controllable dimensions, and tunable textural properties. Particularly, adjustable energy band positions achieved by in situ tailored self/external doping and controllable surface functionalities make these nanocomposites promising photocatalysts. Despite some progress in this field, fundamental questions remain to be addressed to further understand the relationship between the structures, properties, and photocatalytic performance of nanocomposites. In this review, different synthesis approaches including self‐template and external‐template methods to produce MOF derived nanocomposites with various dimensions (0D, 1D, 2D, or 3D), morphologies, chemical compositions, energy bandgaps, and surface functionalities are comprehensively summarized and analyzed. The state‐of‐the‐art progress in the applications of MOF derived nanocomposites in photocatalytic water splitting for H2 generation, photodegradation of organic pollutants, and photocatalytic CO2 reduction are systemically reviewed. The relationships between the nanocomposite properties and their photocatalytic performance are highlighted, and the perspectives of MOF derived nanocomposites for photocatalytic applications are also discussed.
Highlights
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We focus on the recent progress on the optimization of physicochemical properties and the applications of these Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) derived nanocomposite materials in various photocatalysis fields in detail based on their dimension (0D, 1D, 2D, and 3D) and morphology
It is worth mentioning that the energy band positions of metal compounds in MOF derived composites can be in situ tuned by doping heteroatoms, creating phase/heterojunctions between metal–metal or metal–carbon compounds to enhance charge migration and suppress charge recombination
Summary
MOFs can be directly pyrolyzed to derive metal oxides, metal oxide/carbon composites and highly porous carbons under suitable conditions.[24,44,45,48,62] The morphology of the derived materials depends upon the morphology of the i) initial MOFs used as precursors or sacrificial templates; ii) the pyrolysis temperature; iii) the gas atmosphere and iv) other parameters. The MOF precursors can be divided into two categories as selftemplated MOFs and external-templated MOFs.[39] The selftemplated MOFs include pristine MOF structures constructed by the self-assembly of metal ions/clusters and organic linkers They consist of single metal or multimetal, encapsulated metals and heteroatom (N, C, S, and P) doped metal(s) either directly loaded or modified through postsynthesis treatment, impregnation or ion/linker exchange. The morphology of these self-templated MOFs stems solely from the reticular structure formed by the coordination bonds between metal clusters and organic linkers, which do not change after the introducing of guest species.[11,63,64] These self-templated MOFs can readily replicate their morphologies into the MOF derived nanocomposites. It is of vital importance to optimize the morphologies, compositions and the interfacial contacts of metal compounds and carbon matrix in MOF derived nanocomposites to enhance photocatalytic performance.[20,94,100,101]
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