Photocatalytic Water Splitting: Quantitative Approaches toward Photocatalyst by Design

A widely used term, “photocatalysis”, generally addresses photocatalytic (energetically down-hill) and photosynthetic (energetically up-hill) reactions and refers to the use of photonic energy as a driving force for chemical transformations, i.e., electron reorganization to form/break chemical bonds. Although there are many such important reactions, this contribution focuses on the fundamental aspects of photocatalytic water splitting into hydrogen and oxygen by using light from the solar spectrum, which is one of the most investigated photosynthetic reactions. Photocatalytic water splitting using solar energy is considered to be artificial photosynthesis that produces a solar fuel because the reaction mimics…

• KA
  King Abdullah University of Science and Technology