Perovskite-type lanthanum ferrite based photocatalysts: Preparation, properties, and applications

Abstract

Clean energy and a sustainable environment are grand challenges that the world is facing which can be addressed by converting solar energy into transportable and storable fuels (chemical fuel). The main scientific and technological challenges for efficient solar energy conversion, energy storage, and environmental applications are the stability, durability, and performance of low-cost functional materials. Among different nanomaterials, perovskite type LaFeO3 has been extensively investigated as a photocatalyst due to its abundance, high stability, compositional and structural flexibility, high electrocatalytic activity, efficient sunlight absorption, and tunable band gap and band edges. Hence, it is urgent to write a comprehensive review to highlight the trend, challenges, and prospects of LaFeO3 in the field of photocatalytic solar energy conversion and environment purification. This critical review summarizes the history and basic principles of photocatalysis. Further, it reviews in detail the LaFeO3, applications, shortcomings, and activity enhancement strategies including the design of nanostructures, elemental doping, and heterojunctions construction such as Type-I, Type-II, Z-Type, and uncommon heterojunctions. Besides, the optical and electronic properties, charge carriers separation, electron transport phenomenon and alignment of the band gaps in LaFeO3-based heterostructures are comprehensively discussed.