Cu-Based Z-Schemes Family Photocatalysts for Solar H2 Production

Abstract

Solar photocatalytic H2 production has drawn an increasing amount of attention from the scientific community, industry, and society due to its use of green solar energy and a photocatalyst (semiconductor material) to produce green H2. Cu-based semiconductors are interesting as photocatalysts for H2 production because Cu is earth-abundant, cheap, and the synthesis of its copper-containing semiconductors is straightforward. Moreover, Cu-based semiconductors absorb visible light and present an adequate redox potential to perform water splitting reaction. Nevertheless, pristine Cu-based semiconductors exhibit low photoactivity due to the rapid recombination of photo-induced electron-hole (e−-h+) pairs and are subject to photo corrosion. To remedy these pitfalls, the Cu semiconductor-based Z-scheme family (Z-schemes and S-schemes) presents great interest due to the charge carrier mechanism involved. Due to the interest of Z-scheme photocatalysts in this issue, the basic concepts of the Z-scheme focusing on Cu-based semiconductors are addressed to obtain novel systems with high H2 photo-catalytic activity. Focusing on H2 production using Cu-based Z-schemes photocatalyst, the most representative examples are included in the main text. To conclude, an outlook on the future challenges of this topic is addressed.