Wang Xin, Ma Siqing, Liu Boyan, Wang Songcan, Huang Wei
Frontiers Science Center for Flexible Electronics, Xi'an Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE), Northwestern Polytechnical University, 127 West Youyi Road, Xi'an 710072, China.
Chem Commun (Camb). 2023 Aug 17;59(67):10044-10066. doi: 10.1039/d3cc02843g.
Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting for hydrogen evolution has been considered as a promising technology to solve the energy and environmental issues. However, the solar-to-hydrogen (STH) conversion efficiencies of current PEC systems are far from meeting the commercial demand (10%) due to the lack of efficient photoelectrode materials. The recent rapid development of defect engineering of photoelectrodes has significantly improved the PEC performance, which is expected to break through the bottleneck of low STH efficiency. In this review, the category and the construction methods of different defects in photoelectrode materials are summarized. Based on the in-depth summary and analysis of existing reports, the PEC performance enhancement mechanism of defect engineering is critically discussed in terms of light absorption, carrier separation and transport, and surface redox reactions. Finally, the application prospects and challenges of defect engineering for PEC water splitting are presented, and the future research directions in this field are also proposed.
用于析氢的光电化学（PEC）水分解被认为是解决能源和环境问题的一项很有前景的技术。然而，由于缺乏高效的光电极材料，目前PEC系统的太阳能到氢能（STH）转换效率远未达到商业需求（10%）。光电极缺陷工程最近的快速发展显著提高了PEC性能，有望突破低STH效率的瓶颈。在这篇综述中，总结了光电极材料中不同缺陷的类别和构建方法。基于对现有报道的深入总结和分析，从光吸收、载流子分离与传输以及表面氧化还原反应等方面对缺陷工程提高PEC性能的机制进行了批判性讨论。最后，介绍了缺陷工程在PEC水分解中的应用前景和挑战，并提出了该领域未来的研究方向。
