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Hydrogen production

Catalysing artificial photosynthesis

Nature Photonics volume 7, pages 944–946 (2013)Cite this article

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Efficient photocatalytic splitting of water to realize carbon-free production of hydrogen from sunlight remains a challenge. New precious-metal-free molecular catalysts in semiconductor-based, visible-light-driven water-splitting systems are promising for realizing practical artificial photosynthesis.

Artificial photosynthesis, whose development was inspired by photosynthesis in nature, has emerged as an attractive option for converting solar energy into chemical fuels1,2. An important component of artificial photosynthesis is photocatalytic hydrogen (H2) production in which light absorbers and hydrogen-forming catalysts are coupled to split water under sunlight. Although it is a simple reaction, water splitting is a slow multielectronic process that needs to be catalysed3,4.

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Figure 1: Benchmarks in the development of artificial photosynthesis for photocatalytic hydrogen production.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. and the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Samuel S. Mao is at the Samuel Mao Institute of New Energy, Science Hall, 1003 Shangbu Road, Shenzhen 518031, China, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA,

    Samuel S. Mao

  2. Shaohua Shen is at the State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China,

    Shaohua Shen

Authors
  1. Samuel S. Mao
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  2. Shaohua Shen
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Correspondence to Samuel S. Mao.

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Mao, S., Shen, S. Catalysing artificial photosynthesis. Nature Photon 7, 944–946 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.326

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