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A mini-review of ferrites-based photocatalyst on application of hydrogen production

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Abstract

Photocatalytic water splitting for hydrogen production is a promising strategy to produce renewable energy and decrease production cost. Spinel-ferrites are potential photocatalysts in photocatalytic reaction system due to their room temperature magnetization, the high thermal and chemical stability, narrow bandgap with broader visible light absorption, and proper conduction band energy level with strong oxidation activity for water or organic compounds. However, the fast recombination of the photoexcited electrons and holes is a critical drawback of ferrites. Therefore, the features of crystallinity, particle size, specific surface area, morphology, and band energy structure have been summarized and investigated to solve this issue. Moreover, composites construction with ferrites and the popular support of TiO2 or g-C3N4 are also summarized to illustrate the advanced improvement in photocatalytic hydrogen production. It has been shown that ferrites could induce the formation of metal ions impurity energy levels in TiO2, and the strong oxidation activity of ferrites could accelerate the oxidation reaction kinetics in both TiO2/ferrites and g-C3N4/ferrites systems. Furthermore, two representative reports of CaFe2O4/MgFe2O4 composite and ZnFe2O4/CdS composite are used to show the efficient heterojunction in a ferrite/ferrite composite and the ability of resistance to photo-corrosion, respectively.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program (2019R1A2C1086881) through the National Research Foundation of Republic of Korea funded by the Ministry of Science, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Future Planning.

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  1. Department of Physics and Oxide Research Center, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Yongin, 17035, Republic of Korea

    Haoxuan Ma & Chunli Liu

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  1. Haoxuan Ma
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Correspondence to Chunli Liu.

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Ma, H., Liu, C. A mini-review of ferrites-based photocatalyst on application of hydrogen production. Front. Energy 15, 621–630 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-021-0761-0

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