Development of novel photocatalysts for hydrogen production through solar water splitting processes

世界面临能源短缺的危机。由于化石燃料的耗尽以及由其燃烧产生的环境问题，存在寻找清洁、廉价和可持续的新能源的高需求。氢是地球上最丰富的元素之一，作为潜在的下一代燃料受到了极大的关注。然而，氢以水（即海洋）的形式与氧结合或与化石燃料和无数烃化合物中的碳和其他元素结合的非常大量地存在。目前，世界上大部分的氢气供应来自化石燃料，这是昂贵的，并且不能消除导致全球气候变化的绿色家用气体的排放以及大量的其他相关污染物。因此，非常需要可持续制氢而不产生环境问题的新技术。已被证明，在太阳光下通过太阳能光催化反应分解水是一种非常有前途的制氢过程，无需额外的能源消耗（仅消耗太阳能）和环境问题。在这种光催化过程中，太阳光被用来提供能量来破坏氢和氧之间的键以产生氢。如果我们能有效地从水中提取氢气，那么我们将拥有一个无限的储存库，海洋，用于生产氢气。光催化分解水的研究始于1972年。但由于缺乏合适的具有合适带隙结构、效率和稳定性的光催化电极材料，太阳能光催化制氢的发展一直处于困境。这项研究的主要目标是开发高性能的光催化材料，通过太阳能光化学过程，在这一领域的现有成就的基础上，大大提高了制氢效率。

The world faces the crisis of energy shortage. Due to the depletion of fossil fuels and resultant environmental problems from their combustion, there is a high demand of searching for new energy sources that are clean, inexpensive and sustainable. Significant attention has been paid to hydrogen as potentially a next generation of fuels, which is one of the most abundant elements in the earth. However, hydrogen is present in very large amount in combination with oxygen in the form of water (i.e. the ocean) or in combination with carbon and other elements in fossil fuels and innumerable hydrocarbon compounds. At present, most of the world's current supply of hydrogen gas is derived from fossil fuels, which is costly and does not eliminate the emission of Green House Gases that results in the global climate change as well as a large mount of other related pollutants. Therefore, novel technologies for sustainable hydrogen production without generating environmental problemsare highly desired. Water splitting through a solar photocatalytic reaction under solar light has been demonstrated to be a very promising process to generate hydrogen without extra energy consumption (only consumes solar energy) andenvironmental problems. During this photocatalytic process, the sun light is used to provide the energy to break the bond between hydrogen and oxygen for hydrogen production. If we can extract hydrogen from water efficiently, then we will have an unlimited reservoir, the ocean, for hydrogen production. The research on water splitting by photo-catalysis was triggered in 1972. However, due to the lack of suitable photocatalytic electrode materials with appropriate band gap structures, efficiency and stability, the development of solar photocatalytic hydrogen production has been in a dilemma. The main objective of this proposed research is to develop high-performance photocatalytic materials with considerably increased efficiency of hydrogen production through the solar photo-chemical process, based on current achievements in this field.