Semiconductor Heterojunctions for Photocatalytic Hydrogen, CO2, and Pollutant Treatment
This community develops semiconductor materials that use visible light to drive chemical reactions, specifically for producing hydrogen from water, reducing carbon dioxide, and degrading organic pollutants.
The work centers on engineering "heterojunctions"—interfaces between different semiconductor materials—to improve charge separation and transfer. Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) and cadmium sulfide (CdS) are the most frequently studied base materials, often paired with bismuth oxyhalides, vanadium oxides, or metal-organic frameworks. Key design strategies include creating S-scheme or Z-scheme interfaces, introducing oxygen vacancies, and utilizing quantum dots to enhance light absorption. The primary applications are photocatalytic hydrogen evolution, CO2 reduction, and the degradation of organic contaminants such as tetracycline and other antibiotics.
The largest share of the community's output is found in bismuth research, accounting for 5.4% of all bismuth research tracked, and 4,722 papers here. Carbon contributes the highest raw paper count with 9,292 papers, representing 1.1% of all carbon research.
The community comprises 33,251 papers, publishing most frequently in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, and Chemical Engineering Journal.
Recent work continues to focus on refining interfacial charge transfer mechanisms, with new studies exploring plasmon-induced effects, asymmetric coordination of active sites, and the use of soft X-ray spectroscopy to map charge movement in COF-based and CdS-based heterojunctions.