Abstract
The depleting fossil fuels and their serious environmental impact have heightened the need for an alternative renewable energy resource. The hydrogen obtained from sunlight-assisted water splitting is found to be a promising alternate to the fossil fuel. The proposal of generating hydrogen from solar water splitting has a great potential to solve the energy and environmental issues and introduce an energy revolution in sustainable and cleaner way. A variety of photocatalysts ranging from organic to inorganic materials have been studied, but their overall efficiency is limited due to varied reasons. The prevalent reason is the poor control over the recombination of photoexcited charge carriers. It has been investigated that integrating different materials in the form of heterojunction can improve the photocatalyst’s efficiency in multiple folds. These heterojunctions would enhance the charge carrier mobility and lifetime, absorption coefficient, stability, etc. which leads to improved charge separation at the heterointerface and hence their efficiency in H2 generation by photo-assisted water splitting.
In view of this, the present chapter mainly focuses on reviewing TiO2-based heterojunctions, a widely studied material for photocatalytic hydrogen generation. The basic working principle of different heterojunctions of TiO2, their concerned drawbacks, and the recent impressive progress in developing other forms of TiO2 heterojunctions are presented. In addition, the overviews of synthesis strategies of various TiO2-based heterojunction materials are reviewed. The performance and stability of any heterojunction photocatalyst are dependent on the synergistic functioning of the interfaces between the individual materials forming heterojunction. The study of light matter interaction in these heterointerfaces is expected to provide crucial information helpful for exploiting the potential of these photocatalysts for commercial viability. Therefore, the present chapter also demonstrates the existing methodologies to probe these heterojunctions under light irradiation for charge carrier dynamic analysis. Finally, the chapter is concluded with the ups and downs of TiO2-based heterojunction research and the future perspectives.
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Preethi, L.K., Antony, R.P., Mathews, T. (2020). Titania-Based Heterojunctions for Hydrogen Generation by Water Photolysis. In: Rajendran, S., Naushad, M., Ponce, L., Lichtfouse, E. (eds) Green Photocatalysts for Energy and Environmental Process. Environmental Chemistry for a Sustainable World, vol 36. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17638-9_3
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