Sumesh C K, Peter Sebastian C
Department of Physical Sciences, P. D. Patel Institute of Applied Sciences, Charotar University of Science and Technology (CHARUSAT), Changa-388421, Gujarat, India.
New Chemistry Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru 560064, India.
Dalton Trans. 2019 Sep 14;48(34):12772-12802. doi: 10.1039/c9dt01581g. Epub 2019 Aug 14.
Recent research and development is focused in an intensive manner to increase the efficiency of solar energy conversion into electrical energy via photovoltaics and photo-electrochemical reactions. Electrocatalytic and photocatalytic water splitting into hydrogen and oxygen is a promising and emerging technology. Heterogeneous nanostructures based on semiconductor materials have attracted much attention to be used as catalysts, co-catalysts, photocatalysts and photoabsorbers. Development of transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) semiconductors with two dimensional (2D) layered structures and peculiar physical and chemical properties are playing a pivotal role in the heterogeneous photocatalytic hydrogen evolution (PHE) reaction. The energy band gap tuning with the thickness of the layers and heterojunction interface formation have given an opportunity to design and develop combinations of both photocatalysts and co-catalysts using semiconductor TMDCs. This contribution summarizes the recent investigations on the 2D semiconductor TMDC (MoS, WS, MoSe and WSe) based heterogeneous nanostructures as efficient materials for photocatalytic water splitting applications to produce hydrogen. The literature survey clearly shows that more than 80% of the researchers in this field have worked on MoS-based heterogeneous nanocomposites, as it is the 2 most studied material after graphene. It is also evident that among the materials used so far for the PC HER activity, MoS-based heterogeneous nanocomposites are on top with the highest hydrogen evolution rate and stability. Since the physical and chemical properties of the members are identical, the future research and development would focus on the manipulation of the rest of the TMDC members to achieve the future needs of clean and sustainable energy production.
近期的研究与开发工作集中在通过光伏和光电化学反应提高太阳能转化为电能的效率上。电催化和光催化水分解生成氢气和氧气是一项很有前景的新兴技术。基于半导体材料的异质纳米结构作为催化剂、助催化剂、光催化剂和光吸收剂受到了广泛关注。具有二维（2D）层状结构以及独特物理和化学性质的过渡金属二硫属化物（TMDC）半导体的发展，在异质光催化析氢（PHE）反应中发挥着关键作用。通过调节层厚来调整能带隙以及形成异质结界面，为利用半导体TMDC设计和开发光催化剂与助催化剂的组合提供了契机。本论文综述了近期关于基于二维半导体TMDC（MoS、WS、MoSe和WSe）的异质纳米结构作为光催化水分解制氢高效材料的研究。文献调查清楚地表明，该领域超过80%的研究人员致力于基于MoS的异质纳米复合材料，因为它是继石墨烯之后研究最多的材料。同样明显的是，在目前用于光催化析氢活性的材料中，基于MoS的异质纳米复合材料在析氢速率和稳定性方面表现最佳。由于这些材料的物理和化学性质相同，未来的研究与开发将集中在对其他TMDC材料的操控上，以满足未来清洁和可持续能源生产的需求。
