Application of titanium dioxide (TiO₂) based photocatalytic nanomaterials in solar and hydrogen energy: A short review

Tremendous amount of research work is going on Titanium dioxide (TiO ₂) based materials. These materials have many useful applications in our scientific and daily life and it ranges from photovoltaics to photocatalysis to photo-electrochromics, sensors etc. All these applications can be divided into two broad categories such as environmental (photocatalysis and sensing) and energy (photovoltaics, water splitting, photo-/electrochromics, and hydrogen storage). Synthesis of TiO₂ nanoparticles with specific size and structural phase is crucial, for solar sell application. Monodispersed spherical colloids with minimum size variation (5% or less) is essential for the fabrication of photonic crystals. When sensitized with organic dyes or inorganic narrow band gap semiconductors, TiO₂ can absorb light into the visible light region and convert solar energy into electrical energy for solar cell applications. TiO₂ nanomaterials also have been widely studied for water splitting and hydrogen production due to their suitable electronic band structure given the redox potential of water. Again nanostructured TiO ₂ has extensively been studied for hydrogen storage with good storage capacity and easy releasing procedure. All these issues and related finding will be discussed in this review.