Construction of Nanostructured Heterojunction Photocatalysts for Efficient Solar Energy Conversion
Jih-Sheng Yang1, Jih-Jen Wu1*
1Department of Chemical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
* Presenter:Jih-Jen Wu, email:wujj@mail.ncku.edu.tw
Conversion of the solar energy into chemical fuels which store solar energy in the form of chemical bonds is a promising technique for the practical utilization of solar light. Photocatalytic water splitting for hydrogen evolution has attracted considerable attention for the renewable energy production with no reliance on fossil fuels and no carbon dioxide emission. A sequence of steps, including light harvesting, charge separation, and charge injection, take places in the photocatalysts during water splitting. The performance of the photocatalytic water splitting is usually limited by charge recombinations occurring in the bulk and at surface states of the photocatalysts, which are the competing steps with charge separation and charge injection, respectively. In this presentation, the strategies for the improvement of charge separation efficiency and therefore the photocatalytic performance by the construction of nanostructured heterojunction photocatalysts will be addressed.


Keywords: Photocatalytic water splitting, Charge separation, Nanostructured heterojunction photocatalyst