Application of ion beam technology in (photo)electrocatalytic materials for renewable energy

The development of environmentally friendly, efficient, and universal access renewable energy technology is the key to achieve the goal of sustainable development. (Photo)electrochemical energy storage and conversion technology is an important part. Therefore, to realize the practical application of (photo)electrochemical energy technology, nanostructured catalytic materials need to be reasonably designed, synthesized, and modified. Ion beam technology is a powerful and versatile physical modification method. Modification of various catalytic materials from the surface to interface and thin films can be realized by controlling the species, energy, and fluence of implanted ions. Ion beam technology has its unique advantages, including its compulsivity of element doping and its high controllability, accuracy, and repeatability. It can realize arbitrary element doping and defect control of almost any material and finely control its concentration. This makes it possible for the ion beam technology to adapt to the modification requirements of catalytic materials to tailor the electronic structure, interface structure, and morphology of the materials more finely. Besides, a variety of strategies for material design can be realized using ion beams, including element doping, defect control, heterostructure construction, and micro/nanostructure formation, which may bring novel changes in catalytic materials. In this Review, we briefly introduce the principle of ion beam technology and introduce various ion beam technologies that can be applied to different catalytic material modification applications. We systematically review the research progress on the application of ion beam technology in photocatalytic, photoelectrocatalytic, and electrocatalytic materials for water splitting including bandgap engineering, defect engineering, heterostructure formation through ion doping, ion irradiation, ion sputtering, and their combined effects. The applications of ion beam technology on modification of fuel oxidation reaction and oxygen reduction reaction electrocatalysts for fuel cells are also introduced. The advantages of ion beam technology in the modification of catalytic materials are summarized. Several promising topics are proposed to look forward to the future development of ion beam technology in the field of catalytic materials.