Abstract
The energy crisis is one of the most serious issue that we confront today. Among different strategies to gain access to reliable fuel, the production of hydrogen fuel through the water-splitting reaction has emerged as the most viable alternative. Specifically, the studies on defect-rich TiO2 materials have been proved that it can perform as an efficient catalyst for electrocatalytic and photocatalytic water-splitting reactions. In this invited review, we have included a general and critical discussion on the background of titanium sub-oxides structure, defect chemistries and the consequent disorder arising in defect-rich Titania and their applications towards water-splitting reactions. We have particularly emphasized the origin of the catalytic activity in Titania-based material and its effects on the structural, optical and electronic behavior. This review article also summarizes studies on challenging issues on defect-rich Titania and new possible directions for the development of an efficient catalyst with improved catalytic performance.
Highlights
Some of the world’s technologies are currently due to the manipulation of defects
The past centuries have witnessed significant progress towards commercialization of water-splitting technologies predominantly due to the intentional creation of defects in various catalytically in-active materials [14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22], but still, we are distant from the basic understanding of structural defects and the critical parameters which play an essential role in water-splitting applications
To understand the scientific origin of catalytic activity on the disordered structures we focus our interest on: (i) defects and defect chemistry; (ii) standard experimental approaches to Catalysts 2018, 8, 601; doi:10.3390/catal8120601
Summary
Some of the world’s technologies are currently due to the manipulation of defects. For example, defects can transform a hard white solid α-Al2 O3 (corundum) to colored gems like ruby and sapphire [1]. The past centuries have witnessed significant progress towards commercialization of water-splitting technologies predominantly due to the intentional creation of defects in various catalytically in-active materials [14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22], but still, we are distant from the basic understanding of structural defects and the critical parameters which play an essential role in water-splitting applications. We collectively discussed intrinsic defect engineering (self-doping) defect engineering (self-doping) of futuristic catalyst ‘Titania’ for water-splitting reaction. The striking characteristics of Titania such striking characteristics of Titania such as strong oxidizing power, earth abundance, non-toxic, as strong oxidizing power, earth abundance, non-toxic, chemical, physical and thermal stability, easy chemical, physical and thermal stability, easy availability and excellent photoactivity supports this availability and excellent photoactivity supports this material as the best option for water-splitting material as the best option for water-splitting reaction.
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