Research progress in ferroelectric heterojunction photocatalyst

Semiconductor photocatalytic materials have great potential in environmental remediation and renewable energy production, but the high recombination rate of photogenerated electron holes is the bottleneck restricting the performance improvement of semiconductor photocatalytic materials. It is an important way to improve the photocatalytic performance through constructing ferroelectric heterojunctions to enhance photogenerated electron-hole separation with the help of the depolarization field of ferroelectric material and the built-in electric field of heterojunction. In this paper, the research progress in ferroelectric heterojunction photocatalysts in recent years has been reviewed, and the transfer mechanisms of photogenerated electrons and holes of type-Ⅱ ferroelectric heterojunctions, Z-scheme gerroelectric heterojunctions and ferroelectric-metal Schottky junctions are emphatically illustrated. Finally, the opportunities and developing directions of the future research of ferroelectric heterojunction photocatalysts are proposed.