Photocatalysis using solar light has been widely regarded as a green and promising technology for pollutant elimination. Fast charge carrier recombination is one of the fundamental limiting characteristics of semiconductor photocatalysts, resulting in low photocatalytic efficiency. The use of heterostructured photocatalyst systems, which are made up of many components or phases, is an effective way to reduce energy waste, offer more electrons, improve their redox ability, and to boost photocatalytic activity by facilitating the separation of electron-hole pairs.
Photocatalytic efficiency of semiconductor photocatalysts is limited by the intrinsically fast charge carrier recombination. Various strategies have been developed to improve the photoconversion efficiency of photocatalysts in this context, but the combination of two semiconductors to form a heterojunction photocatalyst is considered the most efficient way to improve photocatalytic performance due to the ease with which charge separation can be achieved through band alignment. The most critical criteria in heterojunction photocatalysts lies in band structure engineering that depends on the band structure of each semiconductor. This band structure factor will determine and govern the photodegradation mechanism whether it follows S-scheme or Type II.
We welcome Original Research Articles, Reviews and Mini Reviews and Perspectives in the subtopics of interest, which include, but are not limited to:
• Preparation of binary/ternary nanoheterostructured photocatalysts.
• S-schemed photocatalytic systems.
• Photophysical properties of nanoheterostructures.
• Mechanisms behind different heterostructured photocatalysts
• Photocatalytic behaviour of heterostructured nanomaterials for wastewater treatment
• Photostability of heterostructured photocatalytsts
Please note that studies using organic dyes such as methylene blue or rhodamine B as photocatalytic activity test substrates are excluded.
Keywords: Photocatalysts, photodegradation, nanoheterostructures, visible light, wastewater treatment
Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
