Oxygen Vacancy-Mediated Photocatalysis of BiOCl: Reactivity, Selectivity, and Perspectives

Semiconductor photocatalysis is a trustworthy approach to harvest clean solar light for energy conversions, while state-of-the-art catalytic efficiencies are unsatisfactory because of the finite light response and/or robust charge carriers' recombination. Along with the development of modern material characterization techniques and electronic-structure computations, oxygen vacancies (OVs) on real photocatalysts surface, even in infinitesimal concentration, are found to play a more decisive role in determining the kinetics, energetics and mechanisms of photocatalytic reactions. This review endeavors to clarify the inherent functionality of OVs in photocatalysis at the surface molecular level using 2D BiOCl as the platform. Structure sensitivity of OVs on reactivity and selectivity of photocatalytic reactions is intensely discussed via confining OVs onto prototypical BiOCl surfaces of different structures. The critical understanding of OVs chemistry in this review can help to consolidate and advance the fundamental theories of photocatalysis, and also offer new perspectives and guidelines for the rational design of catalysts with satisfactory performance.