Future Perspectives and Emerging Trends in Green Nanostructured Photocatalysis
摘要
Photocatalysis showed great potential as a solution to fossil fuel depletion and other clean energy source limitations. By employing photocatalysis for water splitting, hydrogen can be produced which can be stored and used for different applications, using photocatalysts and light irradiation. Similarly, to solve this problem, green nanomaterials (both as a broad class of materials and, in specific instances, as excellent photocatalysts owing to their semiconducting nature and narrow band gap) are becoming trending with well-efficient characteristics for sensing and concomitant destruction of harmful chemical contaminants from water and soil. The conventional (physical and chemical) methods of synthesis have some limitations of toxicity and energy consumption. Therefore, green innovation (environmentally amicable, low-operating cost, and high efficiency) is required to be developed on account of ecological issues. A comprehensive overview has been presented about the different types of green-synthesized nanoparticles including plant extracts, polymer-based metal oxide, ionic liquids metal oxides, their applications in photocatalytic activities, and their mechanism of work under UV-visible light or sunlight illumination.