Design and architecture of metal organic frameworks for visible light enhanced hydrogen production

MOFs offers a potential platform for anchoring photosensitizers and catalytic moieties, encapsulating metal nanoparticles, and supporting the semiconductor to drive chemical H-2 production reactions by taking the advantages of large surface area, permanent pores and tunable channels as well as tailorable physical and chemical functions. Recently, considerable attention has been paid to the application of MOFs in heterogeneous photocatalysis for H-2 production. In this review, the latest progress of MOFs involved in the reaction of H-2 production from water and visible-light-enhanced H-2 releasing from hydrogen carriers were summarized. The successful methods to maximize photocatalytic activity of H-2 production from water by introducing light sensitization and anchoring catalytic sites within MOFs, tuning the band gap of MOFs by modification of functional groups were also highlighted. Also the latest advances in heterogeneous organic dye-sensitized metal nanoparticle supported on MOFs for photocatalytic H-2 production and visible light enhanced H-2 production from H-2 carriers were emphasize. In the end, a brief perspective to the challenges and new development directions in the development of highly active MOFs to achieve high photocatalytic activity in the H-2 production is also discussed, which would be of great interest in the solar energy conversion. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.