Emerging applications of nanodiamonds in photocatalysis

Abstract

As a fascinating nanocarbon photocatalytic material, nanodiamonds (NDs) have attracted more and more attention recently due to their high chemical stability, high carrier mobility, narrowing band gap, easy surface modification, and mass production. This review summarizes the latest progress related to elaborated construction of NDs and NDs-based nanocomposite, including microstructure regulation of pristine NDs, elemental doping and formation a heterojunction by coupled with another semiconductor. The construction and properties of each category of NDs-based material are reviewed on their structure, preparation methods, texture control, and photocatalytic performance. Photocatalytic applications of NDs-based nanomaterials for hydrogen evolution from water splitting, organic pollution degradation, CO₂ reduction, N₂ reduction, graphene oxide reduction, and the latest advances in photocatalytic reaction mechanism have been also systematically reviewed. Finally, the challenges and prospects of the photocatalytic application of NDs are also briefly analyzed.

Keywords:

• nanocarbon
• nanodiamond
• photocatalysis; H2 evolution
• pollution degradation
• CO2 reduction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge the support of this research by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11904080, 21874143), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2019M662512), the Postdoctoral program of Henna Province (201903012), the Scientific and Technological Project in Henan Province, China (202102210049), the Doctoral Program of Henan Institute of Engineering (DKJ2019011), and International Partnership Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. GJHZ1818).