Recent advances and perspectives of iron-based photocatalysts

Abstract

The global warming caused by the overuse of non-renewable fossil energy brings about the serious global energy issues and environmental issues, including resource starvation, melting glaciers, fire and locust plague. Design and develop high-performance earth-abundant, non-toxic and cost-effective photocatalyst to realize the solar energy conversion, degradation of organic pollutants, carbon dioxide reduction and hydrogen production is one of the most effective methods to resolve both the energy and environmental crisis. Iron is the second most abundant metal (5.0%) on earth and has been extensively introduced into the photocatalytic reaction to improve the generation, separation and utilization efficiency of charge carriers owing to suitable band gap, redox position and low redox overpotential. Iron-based photocatalysts have gained prominence as viable alternatives due to the abundance, eco-friendliness and exceptional photocatalytic performance. This critical review delves into the recent advances in the design of iron-based nanomaterials. Further, this review commences with an overview of recent advancements in the design of iron-based heterojunctions (Type II heterojunction, Z-scheme, S-scheme). In addition, this review thoroughly summarizes the applications of iron-based photocatalysts in oxygen and hydrogen evolution reaction, carbon dioxide conversion and nitrogen fixation. Finally, this review outlines the future perspectives for the development of next-generation iron-based photocatalysts.