p-type ZnO for photocatalytic water splitting

Global environmental pollution and energy crisis have been regarded as important issues in recent years, making people aware of the need to develop environmentally friendly sources. ZnO photocatalysts play a key role development hydrogen generation from water splitting via photocatalytic strategy. generally exhibits n-type conductivity, difficulty preparing p-type for forming stable p–n junctions limits its large-scale application. The doping related elements into can introduce new shallow acceptor levels achieve conductivity also overcome barrier wide bandgap accomplish higher light absorption efficiency. Meanwhile, realization facilitate construction ZnO-based homojunctions heterojunctions, which will accelerate photoinduced charge separation then enhance performance. In this Perspective, we discuss advances fabrication by different dopants describe benefits compared applications. Finally, analyze difficulties challenges employed consider future advancement an emerging area.