Application of Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) Based Photocatalytic Nanomaterials in Solar and Hydrogen Energy: A Short Review

Abstract

Tremendous amount of research work is going on Titanium dioxide (TiO2) based materials. These materials have many useful applications in our scientific and daily life and it ranges from photovoltaics to photocatalysis to photo-electrochromics, sensors etc.. All these applications can be divided into two broad categories such as environmental (photocatalysis and sensing) and energy (photovoltaics, water splitting, photo-/electrochromics, and hydrogen storage). Synthesis of TiO2nanoparticles with specific size and structural phase is crucial, for solar sell application. Monodispersed spherical colloids with minimum size variation (5% or less) is essential for the fabrication of photonic crystals. When sensitized with organic dyes or inorganic narrow band gap semiconductors, TiO2can absorb light into the visible light region and convert solar energy into electrical energy for solar cell applications. TiO2nanomaterials also have been widely studied for water splitting and hydrogen production due to their suitable electronic band structure given the redox potential of water. Again nanostructured TiO2has extensively been studied for hydrogen storage with good storage capacity and easy releasing procedure. All these issues and related finding will be discussed in this review.