Recent progress in atomically precise metal nanoclusters for photocatalytic application

Abstract

Photocatalysis is a widely recognized green and sustainable technology that can harness inexhaustible solar energy to achieve chemical reactions, offering the opportunity to mitigate environmental issues and the energy crisis. Photocatalyst with wide spectra response and rapid charge transfer capability is the crucial for highly-efficient photocatalytic activity. Atomically precise metal nanoclusters (NCs), as an emerging atomic-level material, have attracted great interests due to the ultrasmall size, unique atomic stacking way, abundant surface active sites, and quantum confinement effect. Especially, the molecule-like discrete electronic energy level endows it small-band-gap semiconductor behavior that can be photoexcited to generate electrons and holes to participate photoredox reaction. In addition, metal NCs exhibits strong light-harvesting ability in relative wide spectra from UV to near IR region and the diversity of optical absorption property can be precisely regulated by composition and structure. These merits make metal NCs ideal candidates for photocatalysis. In this review, the recent advances in atomically precise metal NCs for photocatalytic application are summarized, including photocatalytic water splitting, CO2 reduction, organic transformation, photoelectrocatalytic reaction, N2 fixation and H2O2 production. In addition, the strategy for promoting photostability and charge transfer and separation efficiency of metal NCs are highlighted. Finally, the perspective on challenges and opportunities for NCs-based photocatalysts are provided.