Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Photochemistry

Light on the path

Nature Catalysis volume 1, pages 240–241 (2018)Cite this article

Subjects

Discerning the precise mechanisms of photocatalytic energy conversion has long been a challenge. A computational multiscale approach reveals insights into the reaction pathways and rate-limiting steps of the oxygen evolution reaction, the bottleneck for water splitting on TiO2 surfaces.

The conversion of sunlight to chemical energy via photocatalytic water splitting is a potentially powerful approach to sustainable energy production at a global scale1. The only requirements are solar energy, water and an efficient catalyst that facilitates the water-splitting reaction. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is the most commonly studied water-splitting catalyst due to its relative abundance, low cost, stability, and favourable alignment of band edges with respect to the water oxidation and reduction potentials2. Water splitting consists of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), with the latter regarded as the bottleneck, leading to low solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiencies3. Efforts to increase the efficiency of the reaction have been hindered by a limited understanding of the OER reaction pathway and rate-limiting steps3,4, and the need for multiscale computational approaches to accurately model the OER5,6.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: A multiscale computational framework to improve the efficiency of the OER.

References

  1. Fujishima, A. & Honda, K. Nature 238, 37–38 (1972).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Nozik, A. J. Nature 257, 383–386 (1975).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Li, Y. F. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 132, 13008–13015 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Nakamura, R. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 127, 12975–12983 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Chen, J. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 135, 18774–18777 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Shirai, K. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 140, 1415–1422 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Wang, D. et al. Nat. Catal. http://doi.org/s41929-018-0055-z (2018).

  8. Carloni, P. et al. J. Phys. Chem. B 104, 823–835 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Ashwathi Iyer

  2. Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Elif Ertekin

Authors
  1. Ashwathi Iyer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Elif Ertekin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ashwathi Iyer or Elif Ertekin.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Iyer, A., Ertekin, E. Light on the path. Nat Catal 1, 240–241 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-018-0058-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-018-0058-9

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing