review · Chemical Society Reviews
Copper compounds are a versatile group of photocatalytic materials that include oxides, binary oxides, sulfides, selenides, phosphides, and metal organic frameworks. These materials possess narrow bandgaps, large absorption coefficients, and suitable band positions. When integrated into S-scheme heterojunctions, copper-based materials exhibit improved photoinduced charge separation efficiency. This configuration enhances performance across multiple applications, including hydrogen evolution, carbon dioxide reduction, hydrogen peroxide generation, nitrogen fixation, and pollutant degradation. A review of this field outlines the fundamentals of S-scheme charge transfer, design principles, verification tools, and material classifications by chemical composition. It also analyses how the transfer mechanism improves catalytic activity, whilst outlining existing performance limitations and prospective directions for advanced photocatalyst design.
Harnessing solar energy for chemical conversion is vital for clean energy generation and pollution control. Copper is an accessible, versatile material that, when paired into S-scheme heterojunctions, can split water for hydrogen, recycle carbon dioxide, and break down pollutants. Understanding these systems helps researchers design more efficient catalysts for renewable energy storage and environmental protection.
Potential applications span sustainable energy conversion, such as green hydrogen production and carbon dioxide utilisation, and environmental remediation through pollutant degradation. Technology developers in renewable fuels and industrial effluent treatment represent the primary target users. As this synthesis focuses on material design principles, fundamental charge-transfer mechanisms, and existing technical limitations, the technology remains at an early stage of laboratory research.
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S-scheme heterojunctions have become a hot topic in photocatalysis. Copper (Cu) compounds are a versatile family of photocatalytic materials, including oxides (CuO, Cu<sub>2</sub>O), binary oxides (CuBi<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub>, CuFe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub>), sulfides (Cu<sub><i>x</i></sub>S, (1 ≤ <i>x</i> ≤ 2)), selenides (CuSe), phosphides (Cu<sub>3</sub>P), metal organic frameworks (MOFs), <i>etc.</i> These materials are characterized by narrow bandgaps, large absorption coefficients, and suitable band positions. To further increase the efficiency of photoinduced charge separation, Cu-based photocatalytic materials are widely integrated into S-scheme heterojunctions and exploited for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), CO<sub>2</sub> reduction, H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> generation, N<sub>2</sub> fixation, and pollutant degradation. This review comprehensively discusses recent progress in Cu-based S-scheme heterojunctions, and highlights their considerable potential for targeted applications in sustainable energy conversion, environmental remediation, and beyond. The fundamentals of S-scheme charge transfer, the design principles and verification tools are summarized. Then, the review describes the Cu-based photocatalytic materials, categorized according to their chemical composition, and their integration in S-scheme heterojunctions for photocatalytic applications. In particular, the implications of the S-scheme charge transfer mechanism on promoting the catalytic activity of selected systems are analyzed. Finally, current limitations and outlooks are provided to motivate future studies on developing novel and advanced Cu-based S-scheme photocatalysts with high performance and studying the underlying photocatalytic mechanisms.
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DOI: 10.1039/d4cs01091d
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