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Catalysts
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Advances in Semiconducting Materials for Solar Energy Catalytic Conversion
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Advances in Semiconducting Materials for Solar Energy Catalytic Conversion

A special issue of Catalysts (ISSN 2073-4344). This special issue belongs to the section "Photocatalysis".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2023)

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Yongpeng Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1EW, Cambridgeshire, UK
Interests: solar energy conversion; physical chemistry; electrochemistry; operando spectroscopy; bioelectrocatalysis
Dr. Yong Zuo

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
Italian Institute of Technology, Via Morego 30, 16163 Genova, Italy
Interests: colloidal synthesis; electro catalytic water splitting; photoelectrocatalytic water splitting; in-situ characterization; water electrolyzer

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The journal Catalysts is launching a new Special Issue entitled “Advances in Semiconducting Materials for Solar Energy Conversion”. Utilizing solar energy has long been considered as one of the most promising strategies to deal with the global energy crisis. Semiconducting materials are great candidates as light absorbers; upon solar irradiation, semiconductors can convert incident photons into electrons and holes. These free charge carriers can either be directly harvested as electricity, that is, in a solar cell, or can be used to catalyze chemical reactions such as water splitting, CO2 reduction, N2 reduction, and organic synthesis, to produce valuable chemical fuels. Adapting semiconducting materials for solar cell and solar fuel production has been active research topics in the past few decades, tremendous efforts have been made in establishing the fundamental and applications of photoelectrochemistry and photocatalytic fuel production. Recently, the discovery of novel materials (such as perovskite and organic materials) and development of advanced characterization techniques (such as operando electron microscopy and operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy) have created a new era of semiconductors for solar energy conversion.

It is with our great pleasure to invite you to submit your manuscript to the Special Issue “Advances in Semiconducting Materials for Solar Energy Conversion” to share your recent research on fundamental and application of semiconductors for solar energy conversion. The topics covered in this Special Issue include but are not limited to:

  • Emerging semiconducting materials;
  • Operando spectroscopy;
  • Perovskite for solar fuel production;
  • Photoelectrochemical/photocatalytic water splitting;
  • Photoelectrochemical/photocatalytic CO2 reduction;
  • Photoelectrochemical/photocatalytic N2 reduction;
  • Photoelectrochemical/photocatalytic H2O2 production;
  • Photoelectrochemical/photocatalytic wastewater treatment;
  • Photoelectrochemical tandem cells;
  • Photoreforming;
  • Modeling and simulation for solar energy conversion.

We welcome authors to submit original contributions in the form of research articles, perspective articles, review articles, and short communications to this Special Issue.

Dr. Yongpeng Liu
Dr. Yong Zuo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Catalysts is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • photoelectrochemistry
  • photocatalysts
  • semiconductors
  • water splitting
  • CO2 reduction
  • N2 reduction
  • operando spectroscopy

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 7196 KiB  
Article
Effect of Nitrogen Doping in GO as Support in ZnO/GO-N Compounds and Their Photocatalytic Assessment to Degrade the Lignin Molecule
by R. Rangel, A. Ramos-Corona, J. Espino, P. Quintana, P. Bartolo-Pérez and R. García
Catalysts 2023, 13(1), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/catal13010069 - 30 Dec 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1802
Abstract
Control of the recombination process and improvement of transport charge carriers could be achieved in photocatalysts by modifying the catalytic support. In the present study, our goal was to study the effect of nitrogen doping on graphene oxide sheets using doping sources such [...] Read more.
Control of the recombination process and improvement of transport charge carriers could be achieved in photocatalysts by modifying the catalytic support. In the present study, our goal was to study the effect of nitrogen doping on graphene oxide sheets using doping sources such as urea, thiourea, or ethylenediamine to produce GO-N catalytic supports which were used to form ZnO/GO-N systems. The synthesis of ZnO and GO-N was carried out through a hydrothermal process under microwave heating. The ZnO/GO-N compounds were tested to study the degradation of the lignin molecule under UV irradiation. A set of characterization techniques were used to study the ZnO/GO-N compounds, including XPS analyses which confirmed the N-doping in the samples. The ZnO compound reached 40% of lignin degradation in 70 min, while the ZnO/GO-N compound produced 79% of lignin degradation, also in 70 min evidencing the positive effect of the GO-N support. The best results of degradation were obtained when thiourea was used as the N-doping media. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Semiconducting Materials for Solar Energy Catalytic Conversion)
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15 pages, 7837 KiB  
Article
Boosting the Photoelectrochemical Water Oxidation Performance of TiO2 Nanotubes by Surface Modification Using Silver Phosphate
by Prabhakarn Arunachalam, Mabrook S. Amer, Haneen A. AlOraij, Abdullah M. Al-Mayouf, Mahmoud Hezam and Matar Al-Shalwi
Catalysts 2022, 12(11), 1440; https://doi.org/10.3390/catal12111440 - 15 Nov 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1493
Abstract
Photoelectrocatalytic approaches are fascinating options for long-lasting energy storage through the transformation of solar energy into electrical energy or hydrogen fuel. Herein, we report a facile method of fabricating a composite electrode of well-aligned TiO2 nanotubes (TNTs) decorated with photodeposited silver phosphate [...] Read more.
Photoelectrocatalytic approaches are fascinating options for long-lasting energy storage through the transformation of solar energy into electrical energy or hydrogen fuel. Herein, we report a facile method of fabricating a composite electrode of well-aligned TiO2 nanotubes (TNTs) decorated with photodeposited silver phosphate (Ag3PO4) nanoparticles. Assessment of the optical, physiochemical and photoelectrochemical features demonstrated that the fabricated TNTs/Ag3PO4 films showed a substantially boosted photocurrent response of 0.74 mA/cm2, almost a 3-fold enrichment in comparison with the pure TNTs. Specifically, the applied bias photon-to-current efficiency of the fabricated TNTs/Ag3PO4 composite electrode was 2.4-fold superior to that of the pure TNTs electrode. In these TNTs/Ag3PO4 photoanodes, the introduction of Ag3PO4 over TNTs enhanced light absorption and improved charge transfer and surface conductivity. The developed process can be generally applied to designing and developing efficient contact interfaces between photoanodes and numerous cocatalysts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Semiconducting Materials for Solar Energy Catalytic Conversion)
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15 pages, 2653 KiB  
Article
Integrated p-n Junctions for Efficient Solar Water Splitting upon TiO2/CdS/BiSbS3 Ternary Hybrids for Improved Hydrogen Evolution and Mechanistic Insights
by Bhagatram Meena, Mohit Kumar, Arun Kumar, Gudipati Neeraja Sinha, Rameshbabu Nagumothu, Palyam Subramanyam, Duvvuri Suryakala and Challapalli Subrahmanyam
Catalysts 2022, 12(10), 1117; https://doi.org/10.3390/catal12101117 - 27 Sep 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1932
Abstract
The development of efficient and novel p-n heterojunctions for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is still a challenging problem. We have demonstrated the complementary nature of (p-type) BiSbS3 as a sensitizer when coupled with (n-type) TiO2/CdS to improve the photocatalytic activity [...] Read more.
The development of efficient and novel p-n heterojunctions for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is still a challenging problem. We have demonstrated the complementary nature of (p-type) BiSbS3 as a sensitizer when coupled with (n-type) TiO2/CdS to improve the photocatalytic activity and solar to hydrogen conversion efficiency. The as-prepared p-n heterojunction TiO2/CdS/BiSbS3 exhibits good visible light harvesting capacity and high charge separation over the binary heterojunction, which are confirmed by photoluminescence (PL) and electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The ternary heterojunction produces higher H2 than the binary systems TiO2/CdS and TiO2/BiSbS3. This ternary heterojunction system displayed the highest photocurrent density of 5 mA·cm−2 at 1.23 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) in neutral conditions, and STH of 3.8% at 0.52 V vs. RHE is observed. The improved photocatalytic response was due to the favorable energy band positions of CdS and BiSbS3. This study highlights the p-n junction made up of TiO2/CdS/BiSbS3, which promises efficient charge formation, separation, and suppression of charge recombination for improved PEC water splitting efficiency. Further, no appreciable loss of activity was observed for the photoanode over 2500 s. Band alignment and interfaces mechanisms have been studied as well. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Semiconducting Materials for Solar Energy Catalytic Conversion)
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Review

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23 pages, 5947 KiB  
Review
Emerging Copper-Based Semiconducting Materials for Photocathodic Applications in Solar Driven Water Splitting
by Mohit Kumar, Bhagatram Meena, Palyam Subramanyam, Duvvuri Suryakala and Challapalli Subrahmanyam
Catalysts 2022, 12(10), 1198; https://doi.org/10.3390/catal12101198 - 9 Oct 2022
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 2784
Abstract
Hydrogen production through solar-driven water splitting is a promising approach and an alternative to the conventional steam reforming of natural gas and coal gasification. The growing energy demand and environmental degradation through carbon-emitting fossil fuels urge a transition in the usage of non-renewable [...] Read more.
Hydrogen production through solar-driven water splitting is a promising approach and an alternative to the conventional steam reforming of natural gas and coal gasification. The growing energy demand and environmental degradation through carbon-emitting fossil fuels urge a transition in the usage of non-renewable to renewable sources of energy. The photocathodes in a photoelectrochemical (PEC) water-splitting cell are essential for the direct evolution of hydrogen. Among the known photocathodes, Cu-based p-type semiconducting materials are the most promising photo-absorber materials owing to their low-cost, low toxicity, natural abundance, suitable bandgaps, and favorable band edges for reduction. Moreover, the chemical stability and the rate of recombination significantly limit the longevity, the PEC performance, and practical applicability of Cu-based photocathodes. To overcome these problems, it is critical to have a thorough understanding of the constraints, improvement strategies, and an assessment of current developments in order to construct and design highly stable and efficient photocathodes. Here, in this review we have summarized the development of Cu-based metal oxide and sulfide photocathodes with the significant operational challenges and strategies that have successfully been employed to enhance the PEC performance. Furthermore, the emphasis is placed on recent reports and future perspectives regarding emerging challenges. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Semiconducting Materials for Solar Energy Catalytic Conversion)
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