Two-dimensional metal oxide nanosheets as building blocks for artificial photosynthetic assemblies

Abstract

Two-dimensional metal oxide nanosheets are versatile materials for constructing artificial photosynthetic systems that can carry out photocatalytic processes such as water splitting and CO2 fixation. Nanosheets are anisotropic single-crystals that have thicknesses of 12 nm and lateral dimensions ranging from several hundreds of nanometers to a few micrometers. This structural feature is advantageous for use as heterogeneous photocatalysts, because the diffusion length of photogenerated electron/hole pairs to the surface can be shortened, with less probability of electron/hole recombination. In this Account, recent progress on the development of metal oxide nanosheets and related materials for applications in photocatalytic water splitting and CO2 fixation made by the authors’ groups is described.