Metal–organic framework-based materials for photocatalytic overall water splitting: Status and prospects
Yang An, Lingling Wang, Weiyi Jiang, Xinling Lv, Guoqiang Yuan, Xinxin Hang, Huan Pang
Abstract
With the exhaustion of conventional fossil energy, exploring green and sustainable energy will become an important topic of social development. Hydrogen is considered to be clean and effective energy, and its product of combustion is water, which is harmless to the environment. Photocatalytic water splitting can be a very meaningful reaction to solving energy shortages and environmental pollution, which utilizes solar energy and products H<sub>2</sub> and O<sub>2</sub>. Water splitting includes the reduction and oxidation half reactions, and the oxidation half reaction is the rate-determining procedure. However, current studies mainly focus on semi-reactions of HER or OER, that is, the evolution of H<sub>2</sub> or O<sub>2</sub> in the presence of sacrificial agents. In recent years, overall water splitting remains a challenging problem. MOFs and their precursors as photocatalysts for water splitting have already received more and more attention. This paper reviews the research progress of MOFs in photocatalytic overall water splitting, and discusses the development prospect and challenges of MOFs. In this paper, the research progress of water splitting catalysts based on MOFs in photocatalysis and electrocatalysis is systematically reviewed, and they are divided into MOFs, MOFs composites and MOFs-derived photocatalysts. Finally, we look forward to the prospects and challenges of preparing efficient and stable MOFs photocatalytic overall water splitting materials, and propose the construction of new efficient MOFs with dual active sites, hoping to improve the efficiency of photocatalytic hydrogen and oxygen evolution, so as to achieve the overall water splitting.