Recent advances in photocatalytic renewable energy production

The development of green and renewable energy is becoming increasingly more important in reducing environmental pollution and controlling CO2 discharge. Photocatalysis can be utilized to directly convert solar energy into chemical energy to achieve both the conversion and storage of solar energy. On this basis, photocatalysis is considered to be a prospective technology to resolve the current issues of energy supply and environmental pollution. Recently, several significant achievements in semiconductor-based photocatalytic renewable energy production have been reported. This review presents the recent advances in photocatalytic renewable energy production over the last three years by summarizing the typical and significant semiconductor-based and semiconductor-like photocatalysts for H-2 production, CO2 conversion and H2O2 production. These reactions demonstrate how the basic principles of photocatalysis can be exploited for renewable energy production. Finally, we conclude our review of photocatalytic renewable energy production and provide an outlook for future related research.