Trends in Photocatalysis Research from the Year 2000 to 2020

Abstract

Background: The sole objective of the present study is to explore the research trends in photocatalysis. Materials and Methods: In this area, the first document was published in the year 1921 and until August 2020, a total of 6940 documents have been archived in the Scopus database. Results and Discussion: It is worthy to note that after 2000, a remarkable increase in publications has been noticed. In fact, 6605 articles have been published after 2000. The highest number of publications have been reported in 2019 (784/11.87% of 6605) followed by 2018 (740/11.20% of 6605) and 2017 (624/9.45% of 6605). We calculated the per year growth rate and doubling time of publications. In research publications, the top three (3) countries are China (3030/43.65%), USA (704/10.14%) and India (503/7.24%). We provided the details which may explain why China is the global leader in photocatalysis research. Furthermore, by Vosviewer analysis, we provided the coauthorship and citation details of only research articles and reviews (total 6197 documents). Based on the (a) number of publications and (b) citations, the list of top ten (10) authors, institutes, countries and source details are provided. We also performed the Vosviewer analysis for China’s publications (n=3030). The details about the top authors, institutes and collaborative countries are provided. One of the fundamental questions is: what has been covered in photocatalysis research articles and reviews (n=6197)? For this purpose, we manually analyzed 47,722 keywords and grouped them into different categories. Conclusion: Mostly the document covered research under the names of photocatalysis, semiconductors, photochemical sources, instrumental techniques, electrochemistry, nanomaterials and water treatment. We extended the idea and explored the research publications in selected semiconductors (like titanium, graphene, cadmium, bismuth and iron-based compounds), water purification, toxic pollutants, photocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide, nanomaterials and certain specific instruments like SEM, TEM & XRD, etc.