The world is facing a tremendous energy challenge, and solar energy conversion into fuel, preferably a (transportable) hydrocarbon, is indispensible for a sustainable energy supply in the near future. The most simple process would be to directly convert solar photons into chemical products by photocatalysis. Before direct photocatalytic conversion of CO2 and H2O can be practically applied, however, several challenges need to be resolved, one being the high recombination probability of the photo-excited state of the catalyst, leading to low efficiencies. Although advances have been reported in the literature, e.g. by establishing isolated sites in silica scaffolds with reasonable lifetimes of photoexcited states, a valid comparison of the catalysts' performance in CO2 reduction is difficult. In this presentation several catalysts will be evaluated in a unique set-up allowing evaluation under identical, but variable conditions.

Do's and don'ts in photocatalyst development for solar hydrogen and fuel production

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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